{"id":2451,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:42","slug":"01-canto-one-the-symbol-dawn-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/01-canto-one-the-symbol-dawn-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-01_Canto One – The Symbol Dawn.html"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSri Aurobindo in 1950<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1916 version of a passage in Book Nine, Canto One<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA page of a 1947 draft for Book Ten, Canto Four<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n


\nAuthor’s Note<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata
\nas a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the
\nmany symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended
\ninto the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes
\ndown and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy
\nof spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts,
\nfather of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom
\nof glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living
\nand conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and
\nshow him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

SRI AUROBINDO<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

PART ONE<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBOOKS I \u00ad III<\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

BOOK ONE<\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Book of Beginnings<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nCanto One<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Symbol Dawn<\/a><\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

I<\/font>T WAS<\/b> the hour before the Gods awake.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross the path of the divine Event<\/p>\n

The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIn her unlit temple of eternity,<\/p>\n

Lay stretched immobile upon Silence’ marge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlmost one felt, opaque, impenetrable,<\/p>\n

In the sombre symbol of her eyeless muse<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe abysm of the unbodied Infinite;<\/p>\n

A fathomless zero occupied the world.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA power of fallen boundless self awake<\/p>\n

Between the first and the last Nothingness,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRecalling the tenebrous womb from which it came,<\/p>\n

Turned from the insoluble mystery of birth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the tardy process of mortality<\/p>\n

And longed to reach its end in vacant Nought.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs in a dark beginning of all things,<\/p>\n

A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRepeating for ever the unconscious act,<\/p>\n

Prolonging for ever the unseeing will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force<\/p>\n

Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.<\/p>\n

Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts formless stupor without mind or life,<\/p>\n

A shadow spinning through a soulless Void,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThrown back once more into unthinking dreams,<\/p>\n

Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForgetful of her spirit and her fate.<\/p>\n

The impassive skies were neutral, empty, still.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen something in the inscrutable darkness stirred;<\/p>\n

A nameless movement, an unthought Idea<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font> 1<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tInsistent, dissatisfied, without an aim,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSomething that wished but knew not how to be,<\/p>\n

Teased the Inconscient to wake Ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA throe that came and left a quivering trace,<\/p>\n

Gave room for an old tired want unfilled,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt peace in its subconscient moonless cave<\/p>\n

To raise its head and look for absent light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStraining closed eyes of vanished memory,<\/p>\n

Like one who searches for a bygone self<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd only meets the corpse of his desire.<\/p>\n

It was as though even in this Nought’s profound,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven in this ultimate dissolution’s core,<\/p>\n

There lurked an unremembering entity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSurvivor of a slain and buried past<\/p>\n

Condemned to resume the effort and the pang,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReviving in another frustrate world.<\/p>\n

An unshaped consciousness desired light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd a blank prescience yearned towards distant change.<\/p>\n

As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReminded of the endless need in things<\/p>\n

The heedless Mother of the universe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.<\/p>\n

Insensibly somewhere a breach began:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA long lone line of hesitating hue<\/p>\n

Like a vague smile tempting a desert heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTroubled the far rim of life’s obscure sleep.<\/p>\n

Arrived from the other side of boundlessness<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn eye of deity peered through the dumb deeps;<\/p>\n

A scout in a reconnaissance from the sun,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt seemed amid a heavy cosmic rest,<\/p>\n

The torpor of a sick and weary world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo seek for a spirit sole and desolate<\/p>\n

Too fallen to recollect forgotten bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIntervening in a mindless universe,<\/p>\n

Its message crept through the reluctant hush<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalling the adventure of consciousness and joy<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 2<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tAnd, conquering Nature’s disillusioned breast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCompelled renewed consent to see and feel.<\/p>\n

A thought was sown in the unsounded Void,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA sense was born within the darkness’ depths,<\/p>\n

A memory quivered in the heart of Time<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if a soul long dead were moved to live:<\/p>\n

But the oblivion that succeeds the fall,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHad blotted the crowded tablets of the past,<\/p>\n

And all that was destroyed must be rebuilt<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd old experience laboured out once more.<\/p>\n

All can be done if the god-touch is there.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA hope stole in that hardly dared to be<\/p>\n

Amid the Night’s forlorn indifference.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if solicited in an alien world<\/p>\n

With timid and hazardous instinctive grace,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOrphaned and driven out to seek a home,<\/p>\n

An errant marvel with no place to live,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto a far-off nook of heaven there came<\/p>\n

A slow miraculous gesture’s dim appeal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch<\/p>\n

Persuaded the inert black quietude<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.<\/p>\n

A wandering hand of pale enchanted light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat glowed along a fading moment’s brink,<\/p>\n

Fixed with gold panel and opalescent hinge<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.<\/p>\n

One lucent corner windowing hidden things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForced the world’s blind immensity to sight.<\/p>\n

The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFrom the reclining body of a god.<\/p>\n

Then through the pallid rift that seemed at first<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHardly enough for a trickle from the suns,<\/p>\n

Outpoured the revelation and the flame.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe brief perpetual sign recurred above.<\/p>\n

A glamour from unreached transcendences<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIridescent with the glory of the Unseen,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>3<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tA message from the unknown immortal Light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAblaze upon creation’s quivering edge,<\/p>\n

Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd buried its seed of grandeur in the hours.<\/p>\n

An instant’s visitor the godhead shone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn life’s thin border awhile the Vision stood<\/p>\n

And bent over earth’s pondering forehead curve.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInterpreting a recondite beauty and bliss<\/p>\n

In colour’s hieroglyphs of mystic sense,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt wrote the lines of a significant myth<\/p>\n

Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA brilliant code penned with the sky for page.<\/p>\n

Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares;<\/p>\n

A lonely splendour from the invisible goal<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlmost was flung on the opaque Inane.<\/p>\n

Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInfinity’s centre, a Face of rapturous calm<\/p>\n

Parted the eternal lids that open heaven;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Form from far beatitudes seemed to near.<\/p>\n

Ambassadress twixt eternity and change,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths<\/p>\n

That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd saw the spaces ready for her feet.<\/p>\n

Once she half looked behind for her veiled sun,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen, thoughtful, went to her immortal work.<\/p>\n

Earth felt the Imperishable’s passage close:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe waking ear of Nature heard her steps<\/p>\n

And wideness turned to her its limitless eye,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile<\/p>\n

Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll grew a consecration and a rite.<\/p>\n

Air was a vibrant link between earth and heaven;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe wide-winged hymn of a great priestly wind<\/p>\n

Arose and failed upon the altar hills;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe high boughs prayed in a revealing sky.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>4<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tHere where our half-lit ignorance skirts the gulfs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn the dumb bosom of the ambiguous earth,<\/p>\n

Here where one knows not even the step in front<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Truth has her throne on the shadowy back of doubt,<\/p>\n

On this anguished and precarious field of toil<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOutspread beneath some large indifferent gaze,<\/p>\n

Impartial witness of our joy and bale,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur prostrate soil bore the awakening ray.<\/p>\n

Here too the vision and prophetic gleam<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLit into miracles common meaningless shapes;<\/p>\n

Then the divine afflatus, spent, withdrew,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnwanted, fading from the mortal’s range.<\/p>\n

A sacred yearning lingered in its trace,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe worship of a Presence and a Power<\/p>\n

Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe prescience of a marvellous birth to come.<\/p>\n

Only a little the god-light can stay:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSpiritual beauty illumining human sight<\/p>\n

Lines with its passion and mystery Matter’s mask<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd squanders eternity on a beat of Time.<\/p>\n

As when a soul draws near the sill of birth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAdjoining mortal time to Timelessness,<\/p>\n

A spark of deity lost in Matter’s crypt<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts lustre vanishes in the inconscient planes,<\/p>\n

That transitory glow of magic fire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo now dissolved in bright accustomed air.<\/p>\n

The message ceased and waned the messenger.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe single Call, the uncompanioned Power,<\/p>\n

Drew back into some far-off secret world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe hue and marvel of the supernal beam:<\/p>\n

She looked no more on our mortality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe excess of beauty natural to god-kind<\/p>\n

Could not uphold its claim on time-born eyes;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToo mystic-real for space-tenancy<\/p>\n

Her body of glory was expunged from heaven:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe rarity and wonder lived no more.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>5<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tThere was the common light of earthly day.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAffranchised from the respite of fatigue<\/p>\n

Once more the rumour of the speed of Life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPursued the cycles of her blinded quest.<\/p>\n

All sprang to their unvarying daily acts;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe thousand peoples of the soil and tree<\/p>\n

Obeyed the unforeseeing instant’s urge,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, leader here with his uncertain mind,<\/p>\n

Alone who stares at the future’s covered face,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan lifted up the burden of his fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Savitri too awoke among these tribes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat hastened to join the brilliant Summoner’s chant<\/p>\n

And, lured by the beauty of the apparent ways,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcclaimed their portion of ephemeral joy.<\/p>\n

Akin to the eternity whence she came,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo part she took in this small happiness;<\/p>\n

A mighty stranger in the human field,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe embodied Guest within made no response.<\/p>\n

The call that wakes the leap of human mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts chequered eager motion of pursuit,<\/p>\n

Its fluttering-hued illusion of desire,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVisited her heart like a sweet alien note.<\/p>\n

Time’s message of brief light was not for her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn her there was the anguish of the gods<\/p>\n

Imprisoned in our transient human mould,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe deathless conquered by the death of things.<\/p>\n

A vaster Nature’s joy had once been hers,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut long could keep not its gold heavenly hue<\/p>\n

Or stand upon this brittle earthly base.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA narrow movement on Time’s deep abysm,<\/p>\n

Life’s fragile littleness denied the power,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe proud and conscious wideness and the bliss<\/p>\n

She had brought with her into the human form,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe calm delight that weds one soul to all,<\/p>\n

The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>6<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tEarth’s grain that needs the sap of pleasure and tears<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRejected the undying rapture’s boon:<\/p>\n

Offered to the daughter of infinity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer passion-flower of love and doom she gave.<\/p>\n

In vain now seemed the splendid sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA prodigal of her rich divinity,<\/p>\n

Her self and all she was she had lent to men,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHoping her greater being to implant<\/p>\n

And in their body’s lives acclimatise<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat heaven might native grow on mortal soil.<\/p>\n

Hard is it to persuade earth-nature’s change;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMortality bears ill the eternal’s touch:<\/p>\n

It fears the pure divine intolerance<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf that assault of ether and of fire;<\/p>\n

It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlmost with hate repels the light it brings;<\/p>\n

It trembles at its naked power of Truth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the might and sweetness of its absolute Voice.<\/p>\n

Inflicting on the heights the abysm’s law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt sullies with its mire heaven’s messengers:<\/p>\n

Its thorns of fallen nature are the defence<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt turns against the saviour hands of Grace;<\/p>\n

It meets the sons of God with death and pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA glory of lightnings traversing the earth-scene,<\/p>\n

Their sun-thoughts fading, darkened by ignorant minds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTheir work betrayed, their good to evil turned,<\/p>\n

The cross their payment for the crown they gave,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly they leave behind a splendid Name.<\/p>\n

A fire has come and touched men’s hearts and gone;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA few have caught flame and risen to greater life.<\/p>\n

Too unlike the world she came to help and save,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast<\/p>\n

And from its dim chasms welled a dire return,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall.<\/p>\n

To live with grief, to confront death on her road, \u2014<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mortal’s lot became the Immortal’s share.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>7<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tThus trapped in the gin of earthly destinies,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwaiting her ordeal’s hour abode,<\/p>\n

Outcast from her inborn felicity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAccepting life’s obscure terrestrial robe,<\/p>\n

Hiding herself even from those she loved,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe godhead greater by a human fate.<\/p>\n

A dark foreknowledge separated her<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFrom all of whom she was the star and stay;<\/p>\n

Too great to impart the peril and the pain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn her torn depths she kept the grief to come.<\/p>\n

As one who watching over men left blind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTakes up the load of an unwitting race,<\/p>\n

Harbouring a foe whom with her heart she must feed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnknown her act, unknown the doom she faced,<\/p>\n

Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe long-foreknown and fatal morn was here<\/p>\n

Bringing a noon that seemed like every noon.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor Nature walks upon her mighty way<\/p>\n

Unheeding when she breaks a soul, a life;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeaving her slain behind she travels on:<\/p>\n

Man only marks and God’s all-seeing eyes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven in this moment of her soul’s despair,<\/p>\n

In its grim rendezvous with death and fear,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo cry broke from her lips, no call for aid;<\/p>\n

She told the secret of her woe to none:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm was her face and courage kept her mute.<\/p>\n

Yet only her outward self suffered and strove;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven her humanity was half divine:<\/p>\n

Her spirit opened to the Spirit in all,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer nature felt all Nature as its own.<\/p>\n

Apart, living within, all lives she bore;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAloof, she carried in herself the world:<\/p>\n

Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHer strength was founded on the cosmic mights;<\/p>\n

The universal Mother’s love was hers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst the evil at life’s afflicted roots,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>8<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tHer own calamity its private sign,<\/p>\n

Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA solitary mind, a world-wide heart,<\/p>\n

To the lone Immortal’s unshared work she rose.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt first life grieved not in her burdened breast:<\/p>\n

On the lap of earth’s original somnolence<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInert, released into forgetfulness,<\/p>\n

Prone it reposed, unconscious on mind’s verge,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tObtuse and tranquil like the stone and star.<\/p>\n

In a deep cleft of silence twixt two realms<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe lay remote from grief, unsawn by care,<\/p>\n

Nothing recalling of the sorrow here.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen a slow faint remembrance shadowlike moved,<\/p>\n

And sighing she laid her hand upon her bosom<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd recognised the close and lingering ache,<\/p>\n

Deep, quiet, old, made natural to its place,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut knew not why it was there nor whence it came.<\/p>\n

The Power that kindles mind was still withdrawn:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeavy, unwilling were life’s servitors<\/p>\n

Like workers with no wages of delight;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSullen, the torch of sense refused to burn;<\/p>\n

The unassisted brain found not its past.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly a vague earth-nature held the frame.<\/p>\n

But now she stirred, her life shared the cosmic load.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt the summons of her body’s voiceless call<\/p>\n

Her strong far-winging spirit travelled back,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBack to the yoke of ignorance and fate,<\/p>\n

Back to the labour and stress of mortal days,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams<\/p>\n

Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer house of Nature felt an unseen sway,<\/p>\n

Illumined swiftly were life’s darkened rooms,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd memory’s casements opened on the hours<\/p>\n

And the tired feet of thought approached her doors.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll came back to her: Earth and Love and Doom,<\/p>\n

The ancient disputants, encircled her<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>9<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tLike giant figures wrestling in the night:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe godheads from the dim Inconscient born<\/p>\n

Awoke to struggle and the pang divine,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd in the shadow of her flaming heart,<\/p>\n

At the sombre centre of the dire debate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA guardian of the unconsoled abyss<\/p>\n

Inheriting the long agony of the globe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain<\/p>\n

Stared into Space with fixed regardless eyes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat saw grief’s timeless depths but not life’s goal.<\/p>\n

Afflicted by his harsh divinity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBound to his throne, he waited unappeased<\/p>\n

The daily oblation of her unwept tears.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll the fierce question of man’s hours relived.<\/p>\n

The sacrifice of suffering and desire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth offers to the immortal Ecstasy<\/p>\n

Began again beneath the eternal Hand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwake she endured the moments’ serried march<\/p>\n

And looked on this green smiling dangerous world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd heard the ignorant cry of living things.<\/p>\n

Amid the trivial sounds, the unchanging scene<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer soul arose confronting Time and Fate.<\/p>\n

Immobile in herself, she gathered force.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis was the day when Satyavan must die.<\/p>\n

END OF<\/font>
\n\t\t\tCANTO<\/font> ONE<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>10<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t <\/div>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Sri Aurobindo in 1950 1916 version of a passage in Book Nine, Canto One A page of a 1947 draft for Book Ten,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-33-34-savitri","wpcat-50-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451","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=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}