#ignoumeg
#meg07_poems
#brideofthefirebyAurobindo
UPI ID : swarnshikha28@oksbi
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Meter : • Meter in Poetry | Iamb...
Archaic words : • Archaic words |THOU | ...
SONNET & ITS TYPES: • SONNET (SHAKESPEAREAN ...
ALLITERATION & CONSONANCE : • Alliteration and conso...
ASSONANCE & CONSONANCE: • Assonance and consonan...
ARCHAIC WORDS : • Archaic words |THOU | ...
METAPHOR : • SIMILE & METAPHOR | SI...
ENJAMBMENT : • Enjambment with notes ...
Bride of the Fire
Bride of the Fire, clasp me now close, -
Bride of the Fire!
I have shed the bloom of the earthly rose,
I have slain desire.
Beauty of the Light, surround my life, -
Beauty of the Light!
I have sacrificed longing and parted from grief,
I can bear thy delight.
Image of Ecstasy, thrill and enlace, -
Image of Bliss!
I would see only thy marvellous face,
Feel only thy kiss.
Voice of Infinity, sound in my heart, -
Call of the One!
Stamp there thy radiance, never to part,
O living sun.
Bride of Fire is quite like a chant, don't you
think? The rhyme scheme is abab, but it is the rhythm that really powers the poem.
The first and third lines are longer, composed of four somewhat irregular feet, with
the more ponderous dactyls and anapests alternating with trochees and iambs. The
second and fourth lines have only two feet each, one of which is an anapest and the
other, You'll have to scan the poem slowly to unravel its structure. e
The poem is an address to the Bride of Fire. The first line of each stanza begins with
a request to it:. "clasp me now close," "surround my life," "thrill and enlace," and
"sound in my heart." The poet supplicates this bride to do all this to him. The third
and fourth lines of each stanza show, as it were, the poet's credentials, what he has
done to qualify hiin for the granting of his wishes. They establish not just his
preparation, but also his dedication. In other words, no aspiration can be mounted
except on the strong foundation of the readiness that comes from renunciation. But
there is a paradox running through the poem. The addressee is a bride whom the poet
desires, but he claims that he has slain desire to qualify himself for this bride's
embrace. The entire language of the poem, then, suggests the attainment of higher
ecstasies for which the lower ones have to be sacrificed.
Obviously, the key question in the poem is who is the strange bride that the poet
addresses? Clearly, it is no earthly or ordinary bride, because it is described as the
bride of fire. Whst might happen if one were really to clasp a bride whose body is
fire? One would be burnt to ashes, no? Well, the clasp of this bride too is not devoid
of a similar danger. But it is the sort of dying which releases one into a higher life, as
the earlier poem implied. Only when the dross of lower instincts and desires is
purified through the furnace of askesis does the higher self awaken. The bride of fire
brings about this alchemy by transforming the poet through her immortalizing
embrace.
I'd said that this poems is like a chant. Indeed, if you read it aloud that is what it is,
but its content is that of a prayer. Sri Aurobindo believed that the highest form of
poetic expression was the mantra. When you read this poem aloud, do you detect in
it a mantric quality? The sound and sense combine so as to create an elevating
reverberation with your consciousness.