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The poet makes a lucid distinction between these latter images of closure and impenetrability and the former images of celestial freedom. In this case, antithesis gives added vigour and succinctness to the framework of parallelism. The sets of paired images are, in a sense, irreducible. They are the most radically compacted expression of similitude. In scrupulously observing the demands placed upon him by the parallel structure, Sri Chinmoy has seized the opportunity to pare away excesses of form-the interaction of opposites is revealed in hard, lightning strokes.
From this brief survey of a selection of poems from Europe Blossoms, it may be seen that parallelism, syntactical and ideational, is one of the most important single devices in Sri Chinmoy's prosody. He would seem to have an almost electric affinity with this form of rhetoric, such that it occurs to him virtually as a mode of thought itself Valery's statement that "a man is a poet if his imagination is stimulated by disciplines?[30]is here reaffirmed anew. And what results is a tremendous structural dignity and power.
Parallelism may be seen not only as the supreme formal principle of Sri Chinmoy's poetry but also as one of the major creative principles. Firstly, it affords the poet a means of approaching a feeling or concept from various angles. With each advance, he is able to extend and clarify his meaning so that the growth of the poem is through a series of approximations of meaning or subtle nuances. In this way the poet is able to reduce the margin of error involved in translating from his world of inner vision to the outer world. In an age where language is held to be an inadequate vehicle for the expression of man's deepest impulses, this technique may have tremendous practical utility. Indeed, it may ultimately become, as Ruth Roberts foresees, "a great protector of meaning. "[31]
A second major value of parallelism as Sri Chinmoy uses it, is that it provides him with an opportunity to prolong a particular effect. The impact of a thought or figure is held before the reader's attention, so that it glides imperceptibly into his imagination. One is tempted to make the generalisation that all effects of resonance in poetry draw their life from some principle of repetition whether it be semantic, phonological or ideational. It is, Barbara H. Smith writes, "the fundamental phenomenon of poetic form. "[32]
