{"id":1012,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1012"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:59","slug":"18-book-8-canto-03-death-in-the-forest-vol-29-savitri-volume-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/29-savitri-volume-29\/18-book-8-canto-03-death-in-the-forest-vol-29-savitri-volume-29","title":{"rendered":"-18_Book 8 Canto 03 Death in the Forest.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tBook Eight<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

The Book of Death<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n
\n

Canto Three*<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDeath in the
\nForest<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now it was here in
\nthis great golden dawn<\/p>\n

By her still sleeping husband lain she gazed<\/p>\n

Into her past as one about to die<\/p>\n

Looks back upon the sunlit fields of life<\/p>\n

Where he too ran and sported with the rest,<\/p>\n

Lifting his head above the huge dark stream<\/p>\n

Into whose depths he must for ever plunge.<\/p>\n

All she had been and done she lived again.<\/p>\n

The whole year in a swift and eddying race<\/p>\n

Of memories swept through her and fled away<\/p>\n

Into the irrecoverable past.<\/p>\n

Then silently she rose and, service done,<\/p>\n

Bowed down to the great goddess simply carved<\/p>\n

By Satyavan upon a forest stone.<\/p>\n

What prayer she breathed her soul and Durga<\/span>
\nknew.<\/p>\n

Perhaps she felt in the dim forest huge<\/p>\n

The infinite Mother watching over her child,<\/p>\n

Perhaps the shrouded Voice spoke some still word.<\/p>\n

At last she came to the pale mother queen.<\/p>\n

She spoke but with guarded lips and tranquil face<\/p>\n

Lest some stray word or some betraying look<\/p>\n

Should let pass into the mother’s unknowing breast,<\/p>\n

Slaying all happiness and need to live,<\/p>\n

A dire foreknowledge of the grief to come.<\/p>\n

Only the needed utterance passage found:<\/p>\n

All else she pressed back into her anguished heart<\/p>\n

And forced upon her
\nspeech an outward peace:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*This Canto was compiled by the poet from an early version of
\nSavitri in which it had been called Canto Three.It was the third Canto of that poem, not the third canto of any
\nparticular Book. When, after being rewritten at places, it was included in the
\npresent version, its number  remained unchanged.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 561<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\u201cOne year that I have lived with Satyavan<\/p>\n

Here on the emerald edge of the vast woods,<\/p>\n

In the iron ring of the enormous peaks<\/p>\n

Under the blue rifts of the forest sky,<\/p>\n

I have not gone into the silences<\/p>\n

Of this great woodland that enringed<\/span>
\nmy thoughts<\/p>\n

With mystery, nor in its green miracles<\/p>\n

Wandered, but this small clearing was my world.<\/p>\n

Now has a strong desire seized all my heart<\/p>\n

To go with Satyavan holding his hand<\/p>\n

Into the life that he has loved and touch<\/p>\n

Herbs he has trod and know the forest flowers<\/p>\n

And hear at ease the birds and the scurrying life<\/p>\n

That starts and ceases, rich far rustle of boughs<\/p>\n

And all the mystic whispering of the woods.<\/p>\n

Release me now and let my heart have rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

She answered: \u201cDo as thy wise mind desires,<\/p>\n

O calm child-sovereign with the eyes that rule.<\/p>\n

I hold thee for a strong goddess who has come<\/p>\n

Pitying our barren days; so dost thou serve<\/p>\n

Even as a slave might, yet art thou beyond<\/p>\n

All that thou doest, all our minds conceive,<\/p>\n

Like the strong sun that serves earth from above.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew<\/p>\n

Went with linked hands into that solemn world<\/p>\n

Where beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream,<\/p>\n

Where Nature’s mystic silence could be felt<\/p>\n

Communing with the secrecy of God.<\/p>\n

Beside her Satyavan walked full of joy,<\/p>\n

Because she moved with him through his green haunts:<\/p>\n

He showed her all the forest’s riches, flowers<\/p>\n

Innumerable of every odour<\/span> and hue<\/p>\n

And soft thick clinging creepers red and green<\/p>\n

And strange rich-plumaged birds, to every cry<\/p>\n

That haunted sweetly distant boughs, replied<\/p>\n

With the shrill singer’s name more sweetly called.<\/p>\n

He spoke of all the things he loved: they were <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 562<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

His boyhood’s comrades and his playfellows,<\/p>\n

Coevals and companions of his life<\/p>\n

Here in this world whose every mood he knew:<\/p>\n

Their thoughts which
\nto the common mind are blank<\/p>\n

He shared, to every wild emotion felt<\/p>\n

An answer. Deeply she listened, but to hear<\/p>\n

The voice that soon would cease from tender words<\/p>\n

And treasure its sweet cadences beloved<\/p>\n

For lonely memory when none by her walked<\/p>\n

And the beloved voice could speak no more.<\/p>\n

But little dwelt her mind upon their sense;<\/p>\n

Of death, not life she thought or life’s lone end.<\/p>\n

Love in her bosom
\nhurt with jagged edges<\/p>\n

Of anguish moaned at every step with pain<\/p>\n

Crying, \u201cNow, now perhaps his voice will cease<\/p>\n

For ever.\u201d Even by some vague touch oppressed,<\/p>\n

Sometimes her eyes looked round as if their orbs<\/p>\n

Might see the dim and dreadful god’s approach.<\/p>\n

But Satyavan had paused. He meant to finish<\/p>\n

His labour here that happy, linked, uncaring<\/p>\n

They two might wander free in the green deep<\/p>\n

Primeval<\/span>
\nmystery of the forest’s heart.<\/p>\n

Wordless but near she watched, no turn to lose<\/p>\n

Of the bright face and body which she loved.<\/p>\n

Her life was now in seconds, not in hours,<\/p>\n

And every moment she economised<\/span><\/p>\n

Like a pale merchant leaned above his store,<\/p>\n

The miser of his poor remaining gold.<\/p>\n

But Satyavan wielded a joyous axe.<\/p>\n

He sang high snatches of a sage’s chant<\/p>\n

That pealed of conquered death and demons slain,<\/p>\n

And sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech<\/p>\n

Of love and mockery tenderer<\/span> than
\nlove:<\/p>\n

She like a pantheress<\/span> leaped upon
\nhis words<\/p>\n

And carried them into her cavern heart.<\/p>\n

But as he worked, his doom upon him came.<\/p>\n

The violent and hungry hounds of pain <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 563<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Travelled<\/span> through his body biting
\nas they passed<\/p>\n

Silently, and all his suffering breath besieged<\/p>\n

Strove to rend life’s strong heart-cords and be free.<\/p>\n

Then helped, as if a beast had left its prey,<\/p>\n

A moment in a wave of rich relief<\/p>\n

Reborn to strength and happy ease he stood<\/p>\n

Rejoicing and resumed his confident toil<\/p>\n

But with less seeing strokes. Now the great
\nWoodsman<\/p>\n

Hewed at him and his labour ceased: lifting<\/p>\n

His arm he flung away the poignant axe<\/p>\n

Far from him like an instrument of pain.<\/p>\n

She came to him in silent anguish and clasped,<\/p>\n

And he cried to her, \u201cSavitri, a pang<\/p>\n

Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axe<\/p>\n

Were piercing it and not the living branch.<\/p>\n

Such agony rends me as the tree must feel<\/p>\n

When it is sundered and must lose its life.<\/p>\n

Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap<\/p>\n

And guard me with thy hands from evil fate:<\/p>\n

Perhaps because thou touchest<\/span>,
\ndeath may pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Savitri sat under branches wide,<\/p>\n

Cool, green against the sun, not the hurt tree<\/p>\n

Which his keen axe had cloven,\u2014that she shunned;<\/p>\n

But leaned beneath a fortunate kingly trunk<\/p>\n

She guarded him in her bosom and strove to soothe<\/p>\n

His anguished brow and body with her hands.<\/p>\n

All grief and fear were dead within her now<\/p>\n

And a great calm had fallen. The wish to lessen<\/p>\n

His suffering, the impulse that opposes pain<\/p>\n

Were the one mortal feeling left. It passed:<\/p>\n

Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.<\/p>\n

But now his sweet familiar hue was changed<\/p>\n

Into a tarnished greyness<\/span> and his
\neyes<\/p>\n

Dimmed over, forsaken of the clear light she loved.<\/p>\n

Only the dull and physical mind was left,<\/p>\n

Vacant of the bright spirit’s luminous gaze.<\/p>\n

But once before it faded wholly back, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 564<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

He cried out in a clinging last despair,<\/p>\n

\u201cSavitri, Savitri, O Savitri,<\/p>\n

Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even as her pallid lips pressed his,<\/p>\n

His failed, losing last sweetness of response;<\/p>\n

His cheek pressed down her golden arm. She sought<\/p>\n

His mouth still with her living mouth, as if<\/p>\n

She could persuade his soul back with her kiss;<\/p>\n

Then grew aware they were no more alone.<\/p>\n

Something had come there conscious, vast and dire.<\/p>\n

Near her she felt a silent shade immense<\/p>\n

Chilling the noon
\nwith darkness for its back.<\/p>\n

An awful hush had fallen upon the place:<\/p>\n

There was no cry of birds, no voice of beasts.<\/p>\n

A terror and an anguish filled the world,<\/p>\n

As if annihilation’s mystery<\/p>\n

Had taken a sensible form. A cosmic mind<\/p>\n

Looked out on all from formidable eyes<\/p>\n

Contemning all with its unbearable gaze<\/p>\n

And with immortal lips and a vast brow<\/p>\n

It saw in its immense destroying thought<\/p>\n

All things and beings as a pitiful dream,<\/p>\n

Rejecting with calm disdain Nature’s delight,<\/p>\n

The wordless meaning of its deep regard<\/p>\n

Voicing the unreality of things<\/p>\n

And life that would be for ever but never was<\/p>\n

And its brief and vain recurrence without cease,<\/p>\n

As if from a Silence without form or name<\/p>\n

The Shadow of a remote uncaring god<\/p>\n

Doomed to his Nought<\/span> the illusory
\nuniverse,<\/p>\n

Cancelling<\/span> its show of idea and
\nact in Time<\/p>\n

And its imitation of eternity.<\/p>\n

She knew that visible Death was standing there<\/p>\n

And Satyavan had passed from her embrace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

End of Book Eight<\/p>\n

End of Part Two <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 565<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Eight The Book of Death   Canto Three*   Death in the Forest    Now it was here in this great golden dawn By…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-29-savitri-volume-29","wpcat-22-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}