Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies,

Out of the changeless origin of things.

The air drank deep of unfulfilled desire;

Like souls that quiver at the approach of joy,

For ever of its one love-note untired

A lyric coil cried among the leaves.

Away from the terrestrial murmur turned

Where transient calls and answers mix their flood,

To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.

Unlocked were the inner spirit's trance-closed doors:

Across this cyclic tramp of eager lives,

Earth's wordless hymn to the Ineffable

He heard the voice repressed of unborn Powers

Again the mighty yearning raised its flame

And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind

And Truth embodied in an ignorant world

A word that leaped from some far sky of thought,

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Traversed the echoing passages of his brain

"O Force-compelled, Fate-driven earth-born race,

And prisoners of a dwarf humanity,

Around your little self and petty things?

Not for vain repetition were you built;

Your actions can be swift revealing steps,

A Seer, a strong Creator, is within,

Almighty powers are shut in Nature's cells.

This transient earthly being if he wills

He who now stares at the world with ignorant eyes

That look at images and not at Truth,

Yet shall the godhead grow within your hearts,

And feel the breaking walls of mortal mind

And look through Nature with sun-gazing lids

Authors of earth's high change, to you it is given

And touch the mighty Mother stark awake

And make of life the million-bodied One.

The life you lead conceals the light you are.

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Far-off upon your tops the god-chant sounds

Heard by a few, but fewer dare aspire,

An epic of hope and failure breaks earth's heart;

A goddess in a net of transience caught,

Self-racked with the pains of hell aspires to joy,

Knows that one high step might enfranchise all

But dim in human hearts the ascending fire,

Man sees the Highest in a limiting form

He turns for little gains to ignorant Powers

He loves the Ignorance fathering his pain.

He has lost the inner Voice that led his thoughts,

A specious Idol fills the marvel shrine.

The soul's deep intimations come in vain,

The sages ponder in unsubstantial light,

A homeless fire inspires the prophet tongues.

The luminous Eye approaches and retires;

Fate is unwilling and the Abyss denies;

Only a little lifted is Mind's screen;

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The strong climb hardly to a low-peaked height,

His tale half told, falters the secret Bard;

The Voice withdrew into its hidden skies.

Approached through sun-bright spaces Savitri.

Apparelled in her flickering-coloured robe

A bright moved torch of incense and of flame

A pilgrim hand lifts in an invisible shrine.

He saw through depths that reinterpret all,

New-found through an arch of clear discovery,

This wonder of the divine Artist's make

This breathing Scripture of the Eternal's joy,

Transformed the delicate image-face became

A gold-leaf palimpsest of sacred births,

Her brow, a copy of clear unstained heavens,

The very room and smile of musing Space,

Amid her tresses' cloudy multitude

Under that moon-gold forehead's dreaming breadth

Marvelling at life and earth they saw truths far.

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As in a golden vase's poignant line

Of earth's mute adoration towards heaven

Towards the perfection of eternal things.

Bared the expressive deity to his view.

The seizing harmony of its shapes became

Renewing its inscrutable descent

That stood out in life's bold abrupt relief

A godhead sculptured on a wall of thought,

In Matter as in a cathedral cave.

The body's sense renounced its earthly look;

Awaked from the close spell of daily use

He saw through the familiar cherished limbs

An impromptu from the deeper sight within,

Then to those large and brooding depths whence Love

He spoke in sentences from the unseen Heights.

Can use the formulas of a moment's mood

A casual passing phrase can change our life.

Who cam'st from the immortal spaces here

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To set thy conquering foot on Chance and Time,

A mighty Presence still defends thy frame.

Thy fate, thy work are kept somewhere afar.

O living inscription of the beauty of love

What message of heavenly strength and bliss in thee

One shall discover and greaten with it his life

O rubies of silence, lips from which there stole

Star-lustrous eyes awake in sweet large night

Stanzaed to glimmering curves by artist gods,

Venture through the deep world to find thy mate.

Thy unknown lover waits for thee the unknown.

Than One who burns within thy bosom's powers.

The second self for whom thy nature asks,

A close-bound traveller pacing with thy pace,

Who shall give voice to what in thee is mute.

One in the beats of difference and delight,

Discovering new notes of the eternal theme.

One light shall be around you and within;

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Hand in strong hand confront Heaven's question, life:

Ascend from Nature to divinity's heights;

Then meet a greater god, thy self beyond Time."

A hand from some Greatness opened her heart's locked doors

As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,

And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;

And, musing on the index thought it holds,

But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth:

He meets the deeper listening of his soul:

Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self

An ecstasy and an immortal change;

All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:

He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm,

An equal greatness in her life was sown.

Moving in muse amid familiar powers,

She turned to vastnesses not yet her own;

The secrets of an unseen world were close.

Cast from its sapphire pinnacle of trance

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And sank below the oblivious edge of dream;

Then all went back into mind's secret caves;

Sealed in her senses from external sight

When the pale dawn slipped through Night's shadowy guard,

The palace woke to its own emptiness;

Her moonbeam feet tinged not the lucent floors:

Delight had fled to search the spacious world.

END OF CANTO THREE

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