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It is possible that Sri Chinmoy's use of the compound noun has its origins in his attempt to find in English the natural analogue of the Sanskritic and Bengali forms of comparison. Gerow notes that translations from Sanskrit into English

tend to be flabby and prolix precisely where the original displays a tense compactness and is most striking in its beauty.

In the case of Sri Chinmoy's own Bengali language, this compactness is inherent in the language. The formation of compounds is frequent and, in fact, the grammar of compounds cannot be distinguished from that of phrases. The words "swapan sathi," to take an example, may be translated in an interpretative way as "companion of my dream." Literally, however, the words read as "dream-companion," with the two words closely intersecting. In so far as a direct English equivalent may be found for the Bengali words, Sri Chinmoy most commonly elects to keep to the true form of his source language. As a result, he is able to use the compound noun to establish a greater cohesion within the English language itself. The life-principle of poetry, he would seem to affirm, does not lie in any of the norms of grammar and logic but in the interactions of words within the language. Fenellosa explains it succinctly:

Poetry differs from prose in the concrete colors of its diction. It is not enough for it to furnish a meaning to philosophers. It must appeal to the emotions with the charm of direct impression, flashing through regions where the intellect can only grope.[52]

In a similar vein, De Quincey refers to a distinction between the "literature of power and the literature of knowledge." What we discover in Sri Chinmoy's poetry is that the analogous technique of the compound nouns, that is, the literature of power or imagination, largely precludes the introduction of outer details of geography and personal circumstance. This gives rise to an apparent "scenelessness" in the poetry.