Book 1 Book II Book III Book IV Book V Book VI Book VII Book VIII Book IX Book X Book XI
Book Four. The Book of Birth and Quest
| Music | Book Four. Canto One:The Birth and Childhood of the Flame |
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| 020 Across the burning languor of the soil 021 Paced Summer with his pomp of violent noons 022 And stamped his tyranny of torrid light 023 And the blue seal of a great burnished sky. |
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| 025 Rain-tide burst in upon torn wings of heat, 026 Startled with lightnings air's unquiet drowse, 027 Lashed with life-giving streams the torpid soil, 028 Overcast with flare and sound and storm-winged dark 029 The star-defended doors of heaven's dim sleep, 030 Or from the gold eye of her paramour 031 Covered with packed cloud-veils the earth's brown face. |
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| 068 Earth's mood now changed; she lay in lulled repose, 069 The hours went by with slow contented tread: 070 A wide and tranquil air remembered peace, 071 Earth was the comrade of a happy sun. . . . 082 Three thoughtful seasons passed with shining tread 083 And scanning one by one the pregnant hours 084 Watched for a flame that lurked in luminous depths, 085 The vigil of some mighty birth to come. |
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| 086 Autumn led in the glory of her moons 087 And dreamed in the splendour of her lotus pools |
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| 088 And Winter and Dew-time laid their calm cool hands 089 On Nature's bosom still in a half sleep 090 And deepened with hues of lax and mellow ease 091 The tranquil beauty of the waning year. |
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| 092 Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves 093 And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp; 094 His advent was a fire of irised hues, 095 His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy. |
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| 139 In this high signal moment of the gods 140 Answering earth's yearning and her cry for bliss, 141 A greatness from our other countries came. . . . 149 A spirit of its celestial source aware . . . 151 Descended into earth's imperfect mould 152 And wept not fallen to mortality, 153 But looked on all with large and tranquil eyes. |
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| 199 Outlined by the pressure of this new descent 200 A lovelier body formed than earth had known. 201 As yet a prophecy only and a hint, 202 The glowing arc of a charmed unseen whole, 203 It came into the sky of mortal life 204 Bright like the crescent horn of a gold moon 205 Returning in a faint illumined eve. |
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| 215 But soon the link of soul with form grew sure; 216 Flooded was the dim cave with slow conscient light, 217 The seed grew into a delicate marvellous bud, 218 The bud disclosed a great and heavenly bloom. 219 At once she seemed to found a mightier race. . . . 229 Her nature dwelt in a strong separate air 230 Like a strange bird with large rich-coloured breast 231 That sojourns on a secret fruited bough, 232 Lost in the emerald glory of the woods 233 Or flies above divine unreachable tops. |
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| 335 An image made of heaven's transparent light. 336 Its charm recalled things seen in vision's hours, 337 A golden bridge spanning a faery flood, 338 A moon-touched palm-tree single by a lake 339 Companion of the wide and glimmering peace, 340 A murmur as of leaves in Paradise 341 Moving when feet of the Immortals pass, 342 A fiery halo over sleeping hills, 343 A strange and starry head alone in Night. |
| Music | Book Four. Canto Two:The Growth of the Flame |
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| 001 A land of mountains and wide sun-beat plains 002 And giant rivers pacing to vast seas, 003 A field of creation and spiritual hush, 004 Silence swallowing life's acts into the deeps, 005 Of thought's transcendent climb and heavenward leap, 006 A brooding world of reverie and trance, 007 Filled with the mightiest works of God and man, 008 Where Nature seemed a dream of the Divine 009 And beauty and grace and grandeur had their home, 010 Harboured the childhood of the incarnate Flame. |
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| 152 A friend and yet too great wholly to know, 153 She walked in their front towards a greater light, 154 Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls, 155 One close to their bosoms, yet divine and far. |
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| 205 They were moved by her towards great unknown things, . . . 208 Some turned to her against their nature's bent; 209 Divided between wonder and revolt, . . . 212 Impatient subjects, their tied longing hearts 213 Hugging the bonds close of which they most complained, 214 Murmured at a yoke they would have wept to lose, 215 The splendid yoke of her beauty and her love: |
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| 265 The Force in her drew earth's subhuman broods; 266 And to her spirit's large and free delight 267 She joined the ardent-hued magnificent lives 268 Of animal and bird and flower and tree. 269 They answered to her with the simple heart. |
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| 301 A key to a Light still kept in being's cave, 302 The sun-word of an ancient mystery's sense, 303 Her name ran murmuring on the lips of men |
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| 312 No equal heart came close to join her heart, . . . 335 Midst those encircling lives her spirit dwelt, 336 Apart in herself until her hour of fate. |
| Music | Book Four. Canto Three:The Call to the Quest |
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| Listen to Full Canto |
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| 001 A morn that seemed a new creation's front, 002 Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies, 003 Came burdened with a beauty moved and strange 004 Out of the changeless origin of things. . . . 014 King Aswapati listened through the ray 015 To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear. |
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| 109 The Voice withdrew into its hidden skies. 110 But like a shining answer from the gods 111 Approached through sun-bright spaces Savitri. |
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| 165 An impromptu from the deeper sight within, 166 Thoughts rose in him that knew not their own scope. 167 Then to those large and brooding depths whence Love 168 Regarded him across the straits of mind, 169 He spoke in sentences from the unseen Heights. |
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| 239 Accustomed scenes were now an ended play: 240 Moving in muse amid familiar powers, 241 Touched by new magnitudes and fiery signs, 242 She turned to vastnesses not yet her own; 243 Allured her heart throbbed to unknown sweetnesses; 244 The secrets of an unseen world were close. |
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| 255 When the pale dawn slipped through Night's shadowy guard, 256 Vainly the new-born light desired her face; 257 The palace woke to its own emptiness; 258 The sovereign of its daily joys was far; 259 Her moonbeam feet tinged not the lucent floors: 260 The beauty and divinity were gone. 261 Delight had fled to search the spacious world. |
| Music | Book Four. Canto Four:The Quest |
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| 001 The world-ways opened before Savitri. . . . 025 A guidance turned the dumb revolving wheels 026 And in the eager body of their speed 027 The dim-masked hooded godheads rode who move 028 Assigned to man immutably from his birth, 029 Receivers of the inner and outer law, 030 At once the agents of his spirit's will 031 And witnesses and executors of his fate. |
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| 079 Often from gilded dusk to argent dawn, 080 Where jewel-lamps flickered on frescoed walls 081 And the stone lattice stared at moonlit boughs, 082 Half-conscious of the tardy listening night 083 Dimly she glided between banks of sleep 084 At rest in the slumbering palaces of kings. |
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| 085 Hamlet and village saw the fate-wain pass, 086 Homes of a life bent to the soil it ploughs 087 For sustenance of its short and passing days 088 That, transient, keep their old repeated course, 089 Unchanging in the circle of a sky 090 Which alters not above our mortal toil. |
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| 091 Away from this thinking creature's burdened hours 092 To free and griefless spaces now she turned . . . 094 Here was the childhood of primaeval earth, . . . 097 Imperial acres of the eternal sower 098 And wind-stirred grass-lands winking in the sun: 099 Or mid green musing of woods and rough-browed hills, 100 In the grove's murmurous bee-air humming wild 101 Or past the long lapsing voice of silver floods 102 Like a swift hope journeying among its dreams 103 Hastened the chariot of the golden bride. |
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| 131 The bosom of our mother kept for us still 132 Her austere regions and her musing depths, 133 Her impersonal reaches lonely and inspired 134 And the mightinesses of her rapture haunts. . . . 147 August, exulting in her Maker's eye, 148 She felt her nearness to him in earth's breast, 149 Conversed still with a Light behind the veil, 150 Still communed with Eternity beyond. |
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| 190 The seers attuned to the universal Will, 191 Content in Him who smiles behind earth's forms, 192 Abode ungrieved by the insistent days. 193 About them like green trees girdling a hill 194 Young grave disciples fashioned by their touch, 195 Trained to the simple act and conscious word, 196 Greatened within and grew to meet their heights. |
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| 259 As floats a sunbeam through a shady place, 260 The golden virgin in her carven car 261 Came gliding among meditation's seats. . . . 277 Awake in candid dawn or darkness mooned, 278 To the still touch inclined the daughter of Flame 279 Drank in hushed splendour between tranquil lids 280 And felt the kinship of eternal calm. |
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| 315 Still unaccomplished was the fateful quest; 316 Still she found not the one predestined face 317 For which she sought amid the sons of men. |