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I  believe that Sri Chinmoy's compounds work in a similar manner to create a new form in our language from older, more traditional forms, and that this new form heralds a conceptual advance, a permanent extension of meaning. Consider, for example, the following poem:
 

WHEN MY SONG IS SUNG

Lord, when my song is sung
What shall I do?
"My child, do not delay.
Cry for your new dawn-dew."[40]


The "luminous core" of the poem is the compound "dawn-dew." It climaxes the response of the Supreme to the poets question. Yet how are we to understand these two literal nouns within the context of a spiritual affirmation? The logical performance of the word "dawn" is on a figurative level: the end of night, the end of one song, yields the dawn of a new day, a new song. In the natural sequence of events there is no final termination. Each ending is but the precursor of a new beginning, another dawn What startles in this compound is the co-ordinate noun "dew." We know it to be moisture that gathers during the night, to be dispelled by the warm rays of the morning sun. On a biblical level, perhaps, we remember it as a sign of God's Grace. Traditional associations link it with purity. As these numerous associations accumulate, we are continually brought back to the realisation that the word is tethered to "dawn," its radius of action thereby limited. Taken together, the doubling of dawn and dew has an almost indefinable magic. The primary appeal is kinaesthetic: we experience simultaneously the coolness of the night dew and the first glowing rays of the dawn, as a newly-born creature glistens in the sunlight. On a symbolic level, the coming of the dawn releases new energy, new hope and this is complemented by the inner "dew" of purity and freshness. Finally, in the context of the complete reply, "Cry for your new dawn-dew," the poet establishes a subtle interchange between "cry" and "dawn-dew." We are made to feel that this dew is a metaphor for our tears of aspiration, that aspiration itself signifies a new dawn in our consciousness.


"What do we understand, then, by the poetic image?" C. Day Lewis asks.[41] He answers:

 In its simplest terms, it is a picture made out of words.

 

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