{"id":2454,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2454"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:43","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:43","slug":"32-canto-one-the-word-of-fate-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/32-canto-one-the-word-of-fate-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-32_Canto One – The Word of Fate.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBOOK SIX<\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tCanto One <\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Word of Fate<\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI<\/font>N SILENT<\/b> bounds bordering the mortal’s plane<\/p>\n

Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNarad the heavenly sage from Paradise<\/p>\n

Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAttracted by the golden summer-earth<\/p>\n

That lay beneath him like a glowing bowl<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTilted upon a table of the Gods,<\/p>\n

Turning as if moved round by an unseen hand<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo catch the warmth and blaze of a small sun,<\/p>\n

He passed from the immortals’ happy paths<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo a world of toil and quest and grief and hope,<\/p>\n

To these rooms of the see-saw game of death with life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross an intangible border of soul-space<\/p>\n

He passed from Mind into material things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmid the inventions of the inconscient Self<\/p>\n

And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBelow him circling burned the myriad suns:<\/p>\n

He bore the ripples of the etheric sea;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA primal Air brought the first joy of touch;<\/p>\n

A secret Spirit drew its mighty breath<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tContracting and expanding this huge world<\/p>\n

In its formidable circuit through the Void;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe secret might of the creative Fire<\/p>\n

Displayed its triple power to build and form,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts infinitesimal wave-sparks’ weaving dance,<\/p>\n

Its nebulous units grounding shape and mass,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMagic foundation and pattern of a world,<\/p>\n

Its radiance bursting into the light of stars;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe felt a sap of life, a sap of death;<\/p>\n

Into solid Matter’s dense communion<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPlunging and its obscure oneness of forms<\/p>\n

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He shared with a dumb Spirit identity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe beheld the cosmic Being at his task,<\/p>\n

His eyes measured the spaces, gauged the depths,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis inner gaze the movements of the soul,<\/p>\n

He saw the eternal labour of the Gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd looked upon the life of beasts and men.<\/p>\n

A change now fell upon the singer’s mood,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA rapture and a pathos moved his voice;<\/p>\n

He sang no more of Light that never wanes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd oneness and pure everlasting bliss,<\/p>\n

He sang no more the deathless heart of Love,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis chant was a hymn of Ignorance and Fate.<\/p>\n

He sang the name of Vishnu and the birth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd joy and passion of the mystic world,<\/p>\n

And how the stars were made and life began<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the mute regions stirred with the throb of a Soul.<\/p>\n

He sang the Inconscient and its secret self,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts power omnipotent knowing not what it does,<\/p>\n

All-shaping without will or thought or sense,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts blind unerring occult mystery,<\/p>\n

And darkness yearning towards the eternal Light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Love that broods within the dim abyss<\/p>\n

And waits the answer of the human heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd death that climbs to immortality.<\/p>\n

He sang of the Truth that cries from Night’s blind deeps,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the Mother-Wisdom hid in Nature’s breast<\/p>\n

And the Idea that through her dumbness works<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the miracle of her transforming hands,<\/p>\n

Of life that slumbers in the stone and sun<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Mind subliminal in mindless life,<\/p>\n

And the Consciousness that wakes in beasts and men.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe sang of the glory and marvel still to be born,<\/p>\n

Of Godhead throwing off at last its veil,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf bodies made divine and life made bliss,<\/p>\n

Immortal sweetness clasping immortal might,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeart sensing heart, thought looking straight at thought,<\/p>\n

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And the delight when every barrier falls,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the transfiguration and the ecstasy.<\/p>\n

And as he sang the demons wept with joy<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForeseeing the end of their long dreadful task<\/p>\n

And the defeat for which they hoped in vain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd glad release from their self-chosen doom<\/p>\n

And return into the One from whom they came.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who has conquered the Immortals’ seats,<\/p>\n

Came down to men on earth the Man divine.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs darts a lightning streak, a glory fell<\/p>\n

Nearing until the rapt eyes of the sage<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLooked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,<\/p>\n

His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAppearing in light descended where arose<\/p>\n

King Aswapati’s palace to the winds<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn Madra, flowering up in delicate stone.<\/p>\n

There welcomed him the sage and thoughtful king,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt his side a creature beautiful, passionate, wise,<\/p>\n

Aspiring like a sacrificial flame<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSkyward from its earth-seat through luminous air,<\/p>\n

Queen-browed, the human mother of Savitri.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere for an hour untouched by the earth’s siege<\/p>\n

They ceased from common life and care and sat<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInclining to the high and rhythmic voice,<\/p>\n

While in his measured chant the heavenly seer<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSpoke of the toils of men and what the gods<\/p>\n

Strive for on earth, and joy that throbs behind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe marvel and the mystery of pain.<\/p>\n

He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWith all its thousand luminous buds of truth,<\/p>\n

Which quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt trembles at each touch, it strives to wake<\/p>\n

And one day it shall hear a blissful voice<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom<\/p>\n

When she is seized by her discovered lord.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mighty shuddering coil of ecstasy<\/p>\n

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Crept through the deep heart of the universe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of her Matter’s stupor, her mind’s dreams,<\/p>\n

She woke, she looked upon God’s unveiled face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as he sang and rapture stole through earth-time<\/p>\n

And caught the heavens, came with a call of hooves,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs of her swift heart hastening, Savitri;<\/p>\n

Her radiant tread glimmered across the floor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA happy wonder in her fathomless gaze,<\/p>\n

Changed by the halo of her love she came;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer eyes rich with a shining mist of joy<\/p>\n

As one who comes from a heavenly embassy<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDischarging the proud mission of her heart,<\/p>\n

One carrying the sanction of the gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo her love and its luminous eternity,<\/p>\n

She stood before her mighty father’s throne<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, eager for beauty on discovered earth<\/p>\n

Transformed and new in her heart’s miracle-light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSaw like a rose of marvel, worshipping,<\/p>\n

The fire-tinged sweetness of the son of Heaven.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe flung on her his vast immortal look;<\/p>\n

His inner gaze surrounded her with its light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd reining back knowledge from his immortal lips<\/p>\n

He cried to her, “Who is this that comes, the bride,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe flame-born, and round her illumined head<\/p>\n

Pouring their lights her hymeneal pomps<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMove flashing about her? From what green glimmer of glades<\/p>\n

Retreating into dewy silences<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr half-seen verge of waters moon-betrayed<\/p>\n

Bringst thou this glory of enchanted eyes?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth has gold-hued expanses, shadowy hills<\/p>\n

That cowl their dreaming phantom heads in night,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, guarded in a cloistral joy of woods,<\/p>\n

Screened banks sink down into felicity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSeized by the curved incessant yearning hands<\/p>\n

And ripple-passion of the upgazing stream:<\/p>\n

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Amid cool-lipped murmurs of its pure embrace<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey lose their souls on beds of trembling reeds.<\/p>\n

And all these are mysterious presences<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn which some spirit’s immortal bliss is felt,<\/p>\n

And they betray the earth-born heart to joy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere hast thou paused, and marvelling borne eyes<\/p>\n

Unknown, or heard a voice that forced thy life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo strain its rapture through thy listening soul?<\/p>\n

Or, if my thought could trust this shimmering gaze,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt would say thou hast not drunk from an earthly cup,<\/p>\n

But stepping through azure curtains of the noon<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou wast surrounded on a magic verge<\/p>\n

In brighter countries than man’s eyes can bear.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAssailed by trooping voices of delight<\/p>\n

And seized mid a sunlit glamour of the boughs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn faery woods, led down the gleaming slopes<\/p>\n

Of Gandhamadan where the Apsaras roam,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy limbs have shared the sports which none has seen,<\/p>\n

And in god-haunts thy human footsteps strayed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy mortal bosom quivered with god-speech<\/p>\n

And thy soul answered to a Word unknown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat feet of gods, what ravishing flutes of heaven<\/p>\n

Have thrilled high melodies round, from near and far<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tApproaching through the soft and revelling air,<\/p>\n

Which still surprised thou hearest? They have fed<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy silence on some red strange-ecstasied fruit<\/p>\n

And thou hast trod the dim moon-peaks of bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReveal, O winged with light, whence thou hast flown<\/p>\n

Hastening bright-hued through the green tangled earth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy body rhythmical with the spring-bird’s call.<\/p>\n

The empty roses of thy hands are filled<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly with their own beauty and the thrill<\/p>\n

Of a remembered clasp, and in thee glows<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA heavenly jar, thy firm deep-honied heart,<\/p>\n

New-brimming with a sweet and nectarous wine.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou hast not spoken with the kings of pain.<\/p>\n

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Life’s perilous music rings yet to thy ear<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFar-melodied, rapid and grand, a Centaur’s song,<\/p>\n

Or soft as water plashing mid the hills,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr mighty as a great chant of many winds.<\/p>\n

Moon-bright thou livest in thy inner bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou comest like a silver deer through groves<\/p>\n

Of coral flowers and buds of glowing dreams,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr fleest like a wind-goddess through leaves,<\/p>\n

Or roamst, O ruby-eyed and snow-winged dove,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFlitting through thickets of thy pure desires<\/p>\n

In the unwounded beauty of thy soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese things are only images to thy earth,<\/p>\n

But truest truth of that which in thee sleeps.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor such is thy spirit, a sister of the gods,<\/p>\n

Thy earthly body lovely to the eyes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd thou art kin in joy to heaven’s sons.<\/p>\n

O thou who hast come to this great perilous world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow only seen through the splendour of thy dreams,<\/p>\n

Where hardly love and beauty can live safe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThyself a being dangerously great,<\/p>\n

A soul alone in a golden house of thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHas lived walled in by the safety of thy dreams.<\/p>\n

On heights of happiness leaving doom asleep<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho hunts unseen the unconscious lives of men,<\/p>\n

If thy heart could live locked in the ideal’s gold,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs high, as happy might thy waking be!<\/p>\n

If for all time doom could be left to sleep!”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe spoke but held his knowledge back from words.<\/p>\n

As a cloud plays with lightnings’ vivid laugh,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut still holds back the thunder in its heart,<\/p>\n

Only he let bright images escape.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis speech like glimmering music veiled his thoughts;<\/p>\n

As a wind flatters the bright summer air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPitiful to mortals, only to them it spoke<\/p>\n

Of living beauty and of present bliss:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe hid in his all-knowing mind the rest.<\/p>\n

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To those who hearkened to his celestial voice,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe veil heaven’s pity throws on future pain<\/p>\n

The Immortals’ sanction seemed of endless joy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut Aswapati answered to the seer; \u2014<\/p>\n

His listening mind had marked the dubious close,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn ominous shadow felt behind the words,<\/p>\n

But calm like one who ever sits facing Fate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere mid the dangerous contours of earth’s life,<\/p>\n

He answered covert thought with guarded speech:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O deathless sage who knowest all things here,<\/p>\n

If I could read by the ray of my own wish<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThrough the carved shield of symbol images<\/p>\n

Which thou hast thrown before thy heavenly mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI might see the steps of a young godlike life<\/p>\n

Happily beginning luminous-eyed on earth;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBetween the Unknowable and the Unseen<\/p>\n

Born on the borders of two wonder-worlds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt flames out symbols of the infinite<\/p>\n

And lives in a great light of inner suns.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor it has read and broken the wizard seals;<\/p>\n

It has drunk of the Immortal’s wells of joy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt has looked across the jewel bars of heaven,<\/p>\n

It has entered the aspiring Secrecy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt sees beyond terrestrial common things<\/p>\n

And communes with the Powers that build the worlds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill through the shining gates and mystic streets<\/p>\n

Of the city of lapis lazuli and pearl<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tProud deeds step forth, a rank and march of gods.<\/p>\n

Although in pauses of our human lives<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth keeps for man some short and perfect hours<\/p>\n

When the inconstant tread of Time can seem<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe eternal moment which the deathless live,<\/p>\n

Yet rare that touch upon the mortal’s world:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHardly a soul and body here are born<\/p>\n

In the fierce difficult movement of the stars,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhose life can keep the paradisal note,<\/p>\n

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Its rhythm repeat the many-toned melody<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTirelessly throbbing through the rapturous air<\/p>\n

Caught in the song that sways the Apsara’s limbs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen she floats gleaming like a cloud of light,<\/p>\n

A wave of joy on heaven’s moonstone floor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBehold this image cast by light and love,<\/p>\n

A stanza of the ardour of the gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerfectly rhymed, a pillared ripple of gold!<\/p>\n

Her body like a brimmed pitcher of delight<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShaped in a splendour of gold-coloured bronze<\/p>\n

As if to seize earth’s truth of hidden bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDream-made illumined mirrors are her eyes<\/p>\n

Draped subtly in a slumbrous fringe of jet,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRetaining heaven’s reflections in their depths.<\/p>\n

Even as her body, such is she within.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeaven’s lustrous mornings gloriously recur,<\/p>\n

Like drops of fire upon a silver page,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn her young spirit yet untouched with tears.<\/p>\n

All beautiful things eternal seem and new<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo virgin wonder in her crystal soul.<\/p>\n

The unchanging blue reveals its spacious thought;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMarvellous the moon floats on through wondering skies;<\/p>\n

Earth’s flowers spring up and laugh at time and death;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe charmed mutations of the enchanter life<\/p>\n

Race like bright children past the smiling hours.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf but this joy of life could last, nor pain<\/p>\n

Throw its bronze note into her rhythmed days!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBehold her, singer with the prescient gaze,<\/p>\n

And let thy blessing chant that this fair child<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShall pour the nectar of a sorrowless life<\/p>\n

Around her from her lucid heart of love,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeal with her bliss the tired breast of earth<\/p>\n

And cast like a happy snare felicity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs grows the great and golden bounteous tree<\/p>\n

Flowering by Alacananda’s murmuring waves,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere with enamoured speed the waters run<\/p>\n

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Lisping and babbling to the splendour of morn<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd cling with lyric laughter round the knees<\/p>\n

Of heaven’s daughters dripping magic rain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPearl-bright from moon-gold limbs and cloudy hair,<\/p>\n

So are her dawns like jewelled leaves of light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo casts she her felicity on men.<\/p>\n

A flame of radiant happiness she was born<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd surely will that flame set earth alight:<\/p>\n

Doom surely will see her pass and say no word!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut too often here the careless Mother leaves<\/p>\n

Her chosen in the envious hands of Fate:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe harp of God falls mute, its call to bliss<\/p>\n

Discouraged fails mid earth’s unhappy sounds;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe strings of the siren Ecstasy cry not here<\/p>\n

Or soon are silenced in the human heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf sorrow’s songs we have enough: bid once<\/p>\n

Her glad and griefless days bring heaven here.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr must fire always test the great of soul?<\/p>\n

Along the dreadful causeway of the Gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArmoured with love and faith and sacred joy,<\/p>\n

A traveller to the Eternal’s house,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnce let unwounded pass a mortal life.”<\/p>\n

But Narad answered not; silent he sat,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tKnowing that words are vain and Fate is lord.<\/p>\n

He looked into the unseen with seeing eyes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen, dallying with the mortal’s ignorance<\/p>\n

Like one who knows not, questioning, he cried:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“On what high mission went her hastening wheels?<\/p>\n

Whence came she with this glory in her heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Paradise made visible in her eyes?<\/p>\n

What sudden God has met, what face supreme?”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo whom the king, “The red asoca watched<\/p>\n

Her going forth which now sees her return.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArisen into an air of flaming dawn<\/p>\n

Like a bright bird tired of her lonely branch,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo find her own lord, since to her on earth<\/p>\n

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He came not yet, this sweetness wandered forth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCleaving her way with the beat of her rapid wings.<\/p>\n

Led by a distant call her vague swift flight<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThreaded the summer morns and sunlit lands.<\/p>\n

The happy rest her burdened lashes keep<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd these charmed guardian lips hold treasured still.<\/p>\n

Virgin who comest perfected by joy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReveal the name thy sudden heart-beats learned.<\/p>\n

Whom hast thou chosen, kingliest among men?”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Savitri answered with her still calm voice<\/p>\n

As one who speaks beneath the eyes of Fate:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Father and king, I have carried out thy will.<\/p>\n

One whom I sought I found in distant lands;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have obeyed my heart, I have heard its call.<\/p>\n

On the borders of a dreaming wilderness<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMid Shalwa’s giant hills and brooding woods<\/p>\n

In his thatched hermitage Dyumatsena dwells,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBlind, exiled, outcast, once a mighty king.<\/p>\n

The son of Dyumatsena, Satyavan,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have met on the wild forest’s lonely verge.<\/p>\n

My father, I have chosen. This is done.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAstonished, all sat silent for a space.<\/p>\n

Then Aswapati looked within and saw<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA heavy shadow float above the name<\/p>\n

Chased by a sudden and stupendous light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe looked into his daughter’s eyes and spoke:<\/p>\n

“Well hast thou done and I approve thy choice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf this is all, then all is surely well;<\/p>\n

If there is more, then all can still be well.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhether it seem good or evil to men’s eyes,<\/p>\n

Only for good the secret Will can work.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur destiny is written in double terms:<\/p>\n

Through Nature’s contraries we draw nearer God;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the darkness we still grow to light.<\/p>\n

Death is our road to immortality.<\/p>\n

`Cry woe, cry woe,’ the world’s lost voices wail,<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tYet conquers the eternal Good at last.”<\/p>\n

Then might the sage have spoken, but the king<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn haste broke out and stayed the dangerous word:<\/p>\n

“O singer of the ultimate ecstasy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLend not a dangerous vision to the blind<\/p>\n

Because by native right thou hast seen clear.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImpose not on the mortal’s tremulous breast<\/p>\n

The dire ordeal that foreknowledge brings;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDemand not now the Godhead in our acts.<\/p>\n

Here are not happy peaks the heaven-nymphs roam<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr Coilas or Vaicountha’s starry stair:<\/p>\n

Abrupt, jagged hills only the mighty climb<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAre here where few dare even think to rise;<\/p>\n

Far voices call down from the dizzy rocks,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChill, slippery, precipitous are the paths.<\/p>\n

Too hard the gods are with man’s fragile race;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn their large heavens they dwell exempt from Fate<\/p>\n

And they forget the wounded feet of man,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis limbs that faint beneath the whips of grief,<\/p>\n

His heart that hears the tread of time and death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe future’s road is hid from mortal sight:<\/p>\n

He moves towards a veiled and secret face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo light one step in front is all his hope<\/p>\n

And only for a little strength he asks<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo meet the riddle of his shrouded fate.<\/p>\n

Awaited by a vague and half-seen force,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAware of danger to his uncertain hours<\/p>\n

He guards his flickering yearnings from her breath;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe feels not when the dreadful fingers close<\/p>\n

Around him with the grasp none can elude.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf thou canst loose her grip, then only speak.<\/p>\n

Perhaps from the iron snare there is escape:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur mind perhaps deceives us with its words<\/p>\n

And gives the name of doom to our own choice;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerhaps the blindness of our will is Fate.”<\/p>\n

He said and Narad answered not the king.<\/p>\n

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But now the queen alarmed lifted her voice:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O seer, thy bright arrival has been timed<\/p>\n

To this high moment of a happy life;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen let the speech benign of griefless spheres<\/p>\n

Confirm this blithe conjunction of two stars<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd sanction joy with thy celestial voice.<\/p>\n

Here drag not in the peril of our thoughts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLet not our words create the doom they fear.<\/p>\n

Here is no cause for dread, no chance for grief<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo raise her ominous head and stare at love.<\/p>\n

A single spirit in a multitude,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHappy is Satyavan mid earthly men<\/p>\n

Whom Savitri has chosen for her mate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd fortunate the forest hermitage<\/p>\n

Where leaving her palace and riches and a throne<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy Savitri will dwell and bring in heaven.<\/p>\n

Then let thy blessing put the immortals’ seal<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn these bright lives’ unstained felicity<\/p>\n

Pushing the ominous Shadow from their days.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToo heavy falls a Shadow on man’s heart;<\/p>\n

It dares not be too happy upon earth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt dreads the blow dogging too vivid joys,<\/p>\n

A lash unseen in Fate’s extended hand,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe danger lurking in fortune’s proud extremes,<\/p>\n

An irony in life’s indulgent smile,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd trembles at the laughter of the gods.<\/p>\n

Or if crouches unseen a panther doom,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf wings of Evil brood above that house,<\/p>\n

Then also speak, that we may turn aside<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd rescue our lives from hazard of wayside doom<\/p>\n

And chance entanglement of an alien fate.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Narad slowly answered to the queen:<\/p>\n

“What help is in prevision to the driven?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSafe doors cry opening near, the doomed pass on.<\/p>\n

A future knowledge is an added pain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA torturing burden and a fruitless light<\/p>\n

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On the enormous scene that Fate has built.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe eternal poet, universal Mind,<\/p>\n

Has paged each line of his imperial act;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInvisible the giant actors tread<\/p>\n

And man lives like some secret player’s mask.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe knows not even what his lips shall speak.<\/p>\n

For a mysterious Power compels his steps<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd life is stronger than his trembling soul.<\/p>\n

None can refuse what the stark Force demands:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer eyes are fixed upon her mighty aim;<\/p>\n

No cry or prayer can turn her from her path.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe has leaped an arrow from the bow of God.”<\/p>\n

His words were theirs who live unforced to grieve<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd help by calm the swaying wheels of life<\/p>\n

And the long restlessness of transient things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the trouble and passion of the unquiet world.<\/p>\n

As though her own bosom were pierced the mother saw<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe ancient human sentence strike her child,<\/p>\n

Her sweetness that deserved another fate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly a larger measure given of tears.<\/p>\n

Aspiring to the nature of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mind proof-armoured mailed in mighty thoughts,<\/p>\n

A will entire couchant behind wisdom’s shield,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThough to still heavens of knowledge she had risen,<\/p>\n

Though calm and wise and Aswapati’s queen,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHuman was she still and opened her doors to grief;<\/p>\n

The stony-eyed injustice she accused<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf the marble godhead of inflexible Law,<\/p>\n

Nor sought the strength extreme adversity brings<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo lives that stand erect and front the World-Power:<\/p>\n

Her heart appealed against the impartial judge,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTaxed with perversity the impersonal One.<\/p>\n

Her tranquil spirit she called not to her aid,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut as a common man beneath his load<\/p>\n

Grows faint and breathes his pain in ignorant words,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo now she arraigned the world’s impassive will:<\/p>\n

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“What stealthy doom has crept across her path<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEmerging from the dark forest’s sullen heart,<\/p>\n

What evil thing stood smiling by the way<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd wore the beauty of the Shalwa boy?<\/p>\n

Perhaps he came an enemy from her past<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArmed with a hidden force of ancient wrongs,<\/p>\n

Himself unknowing, and seized her unknown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere dreadfully entangled love and hate<\/p>\n

Meet us blind wanderers mid the perils of Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur days are links of a disastrous chain,<\/p>\n

Necessity avenges casual steps;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOld cruelties come back unrecognised,<\/p>\n

The gods make use of our forgotten deeds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet all in vain the bitter law was made.<\/p>\n

Our own minds are the justicers of doom.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor nothing have we learned, but still repeat<\/p>\n

Our stark misuse of self and others’ souls.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere are dire alchemies of the human heart<\/p>\n

And fallen from his ethereal element<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove darkens to the spirit of nether gods.<\/p>\n

The dreadful angel, angry with his joys<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWoundingly sweet he cannot yet forego,<\/p>\n

Is pitiless to the soul his gaze disarmed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe visits with his own pangs his quivering prey<\/p>\n

Forcing us to cling enamoured to his grip<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if in love with our own agony.<\/p>\n

This is one poignant misery in the world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd grief has other lassoes for our life.<\/p>\n

Our sympathies become our torturers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStrength have I my own punishment to bear,<\/p>\n

Knowing it just, but on this earth perplexed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSmitten in the sorrow of scourged and helpless things,<\/p>\n

Often it faints to meet other suffering eyes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe are not as the gods who know not grief<\/p>\n

And look impassive on a suffering world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm they gaze down on the little human scene<\/p>\n

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And the short-lived passion crossing mortal hearts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn ancient tale of woe can move us still,<\/p>\n

We keep the ache of breasts that breathe no more,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe are shaken by the sight of human pain,<\/p>\n

And share the miseries that others feel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOurs not the passionless lids that cannot age.<\/p>\n

Too hard for us is heaven’s indifference:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur own tragedies are not enough for us,<\/p>\n

All pathos and all sufferings we make ours;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe have sorrow for a greatness passed away<\/p>\n

And feel the touch of tears in mortal things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven a stranger’s anguish rends my heart,<\/p>\n

And this, O Narad, is my well-loved child.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHide not from us our doom, if doom is ours.<\/p>\n

This is the worst, an unknown face of Fate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA terror ominous, mute, felt more than seen<\/p>\n

Behind our seat by day, our couch by night,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Fate lurking in the shadow of our hearts,<\/p>\n

The anguish of the unseen that waits to strike.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo know is best, however hard to bear.”<\/p>\n

Then cried the sage piercing the mother’s heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForcing to steel the will of Savitri,<\/p>\n

His words set free the spring of cosmic Fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe great Gods use the pain of human hearts<\/p>\n

As a sharp axe to hew their cosmic road:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey squander lavishly men’s blood and tears<\/p>\n

For a moment’s purpose in their fateful work.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis cosmic Nature’s balance is not ours<\/p>\n

Nor the mystic measure of her need and use.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA single word lets loose vast agencies;<\/p>\n

A casual act determines the world’s fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo now he set free destiny in that hour.<\/p>\n

“The truth thou hast claimed; I give to thee the truth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA marvel of the meeting earth and heavens<\/p>\n

Is he whom Savitri has chosen mid men,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis figure is the front of Nature’s march,<\/p>\n

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His single being excels the works of Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA sapphire cutting from the sleep of heaven,<\/p>\n

Delightful is the soul of Satyavan,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA ray out of the rapturous Infinite,<\/p>\n

A silence waking to a hymn of joy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA divinity and kingliness gird his brow;<\/p>\n

His eyes keep a memory from a world of bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs brilliant as a lonely moon in heaven,<\/p>\n

Gentle like the sweet bud that spring desires,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPure like a stream that kisses silent banks,<\/p>\n

He takes with bright surprise spirit and sense.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA living knot of golden Paradise,<\/p>\n

A blue Immense he leans to the longing world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTime’s joy borrowed out of eternity,<\/p>\n

A star of splendour or a rose of bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn him soul and Nature, equal Presences,<\/p>\n

Balance and fuse in a wide harmony.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Happy in their bright ether have not hearts<\/p>\n

More sweet and true than this of mortal make<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat takes all joy as the world’s native gift<\/p>\n

And to all gives joy as the world’s natural right.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis speech carries a light of inner truth,<\/p>\n

And a large-eyed communion with the Power<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn common things has made veilless his mind,<\/p>\n

A seer in earth-shapes of garbless deity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA tranquil breadth of sky windless and still<\/p>\n

Watching the world like a mind of unplumbed thought,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA silent space musing and luminous<\/p>\n

Uncovered by the morning to delight,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA green tangle of trees upon a happy hill<\/p>\n

Made into a murmuring nest by southern winds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese are his images and parallels,<\/p>\n

His kin in beauty and in depth his peers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA will to climb lifts a delight to live,<\/p>\n

Heaven’s height companion of earth-beauty’s charm,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn aspiration to the immortals’ air<\/p>\n

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Lain on the lap of mortal ecstasy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis sweetness and his joy attract all hearts<\/p>\n

To live with his own in a glad tenancy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis strength is like a tower built to reach heaven,<\/p>\n

A godhead quarried from the stones of life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO loss, if death into its elements<\/p>\n

Of which his gracious envelope was built,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShatter this vase before it breathes its sweets,<\/p>\n

As if earth could not keep too long from heaven<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA treasure thus unique loaned by the gods,<\/p>\n

A being so rare, of so divine a make!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn one brief year when this bright hour flies back<\/p>\n

And perches careless on a branch of Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis sovereign glory ends heaven lent to earth,<\/p>\n

This splendour vanishes from the mortal’s sky:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeaven’s greatness came, but was too great to stay.<\/p>\n

Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis day returning Satyavan must die.”<\/p>\n

A lightning bright and nude the sentence fell.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the queen cried: “Vain then can be heaven’s grace!<\/p>\n

Heaven mocks us with the brilliance of its gifts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor Death is a cupbearer of the wine<\/p>\n

Of too brief joy held up to mortal lips<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor a passionate moment by the careless gods.<\/p>\n

But I reject the grace and the mockery.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMounting thy car go forth, O Savitri,<\/p>\n

And travel once more through the peopled lands.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlas, in the green gladness of the woods<\/p>\n

Thy heart has stooped to a misleading call.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChoose once again and leave this fated head,<\/p>\n

Death is the gardener of this wonder-tree;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove’s sweetness sleeps in his pale marble hand.<\/p>\n

Advancing in a honeyed line but closed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA little joy would buy too bitter an end.<\/p>\n

Plead not thy choice, for death has made it vain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy youth and radiance were not born to lie<\/p>\n

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A casket void dropped on a careless soil;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA choice less rare may call a happier fate.”<\/p>\n

But Savitri answered from her violent heart, —<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer voice was calm, her face was fixed like steel:<\/p>\n

“Once my heart chose and chooses not again.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe word I have spoken can never be erased,<\/p>\n

It is written in the record book of God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe truth once uttered, from the earth’s air effaced,<\/p>\n

By mind forgotten, sounds immortally<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor ever in the memory of Time.<\/p>\n

Once the dice fall thrown by the hand of Fate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn an eternal moment of the gods.<\/p>\n

My heart has sealed its troth to Satyavan:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts signature adverse Fate cannot efface,<\/p>\n

Its seal not Fate nor Death nor Time dissolve.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThose who shall part who have grown one being within?<\/p>\n

Death’s grip can break our bodies, not our souls;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf death take him, I too know how to die.<\/p>\n

Let Fate do with me what she will or can;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am stronger than death and greater than my fate;<\/p>\n

My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelpless against my immortality.<\/p>\n

Fate’s law may change, but not my spirit’s will.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn adamant will, she cast her speech like bronze.<\/p>\n

But in the queen’s mind listening her words<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRang like the voice of a self-chosen Doom<\/p>\n

Denying every issue of escape.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo her own despair answer the mother made;<\/p>\n

As one she cried who in her heavy heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLabours amid the sobbing of her hopes<\/p>\n

To wake a note of help from sadder strings:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O child, in the magnificence of thy soul<\/p>\n

Dwelling on the border of a greater world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd dazzled by thy superhuman thoughts,<\/p>\n

Thou lendst eternity to a mortal hope.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere on this mutable and ignorant earth<\/p>\n

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Who is the lover and who is the friend?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll passes here, nothing remains the same.<\/p>\n

None is for any on this transient globe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe whom thou lovest now, a stranger came<\/p>\n

And into a far strangeness shall depart:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis moment’s part once done upon life’s stage<\/p>\n

Which for a time was given him from within,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo other scenes he moves and other players<\/p>\n

And laughs and weeps mid faces new, unknown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe body thou hast loved is cast away<\/p>\n

Amidst the brute unchanging stuff of worlds<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo indifferent mighty Nature and becomes<\/p>\n

Crude matter for the joy of others’ lives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut for our souls, upon the wheel of God<\/p>\n

For ever turning, they arrive and go,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMarried and sundered in the magic round<\/p>\n

Of the great Dancer of the boundless dance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur emotions are but high and dying notes<\/p>\n

Of his wild music changed compellingly<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy the passionate movements of a seeking Heart<\/p>\n

In the inconstant links of hour with hour.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo call down heaven’s distant answering song,<\/p>\n

To cry to an unseized bliss is all we dare;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnce seized, we lose the heavenly music’s sense;<\/p>\n

Too near, the rhythmic cry has fled or failed;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll sweetnesses are baffling symbols here.<\/p>\n

Love dies before the lover in our breast:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur joys are perfumes in a brittle vase.<\/p>\n

O then what wreck is this upon Time’s sea<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo spread life’s sails to the hurricane desire<\/p>\n

And call for pilot the unseeing heart!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO child, wilt thou proclaim, wilt thou then follow<\/p>\n

Against the Law that is the eternal will<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe autarchy of the rash Titan’s mood<\/p>\n

To whom his own fierce will is the one law<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn a world where Truth is not, nor Light nor God?<\/p>\n

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Only the gods can speak what now thou speakst.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou who art human, think not like a god.<\/p>\n

For man, below the god, above the brute,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs given the calm reason as his guide;<\/p>\n

He is not driven by an unthinking will<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs are the actions of the bird and beast;<\/p>\n

He is not moved by stark Necessity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLike the senseless motion of inconscient things.<\/p>\n

The giant’s and the Titan’s furious march<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClimbs to usurp the kingdom of the gods<\/p>\n

Or skirts the demon magnitudes of Hell;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the unreflecting passion of their hearts<\/p>\n

They dash their lives against the eternal Law<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd fall and break by their own violent mass:<\/p>\n

The middle path is made for thinking man.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo choose his steps by reason’s vigilant light,<\/p>\n

To choose his path among the many paths<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs given him, for each his difficult goal<\/p>\n

Hewn out of infinite possibility.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeave not thy goal to follow a beautiful face.<\/p>\n

Only when thou hast climbed above thy mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd liv’st in the calm vastness of the One<\/p>\n

Can love be eternal in the eternal Bliss<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd love divine replace the human tie.<\/p>\n

There is a shrouded law, an austere force:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt bids thee strengthen thy undying spirit;<\/p>\n

It offers its severe benignancies<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf work and thought and measured grave delight<\/p>\n

As steps to climb to God’s far secret heights.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen is our life a tranquil pilgrimage,<\/p>\n

Each year a mile upon the heavenly Way,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEach dawn opens into a larger Light.<\/p>\n

Thy acts are thy helpers, all events are signs,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWaking and sleep are opportunities<\/p>\n

Given to thee by an immortal Power.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo canst thou raise thy pure unvanquished spirit,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>434<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tTill spread to heaven in a wide vesper calm,<\/p>\n

Indifferent and gentle as the sky,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt greatens slowly into timeless peace.”<\/p>\n

But Savitri replied with steadfast eyes:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“My will is part of the eternal Will,<\/p>\n

My fate is what my spirit’s strength can make,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy fate is what my spirit’s strength can bear;<\/p>\n

My strength is not the Titan’s; it is God’s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have discovered my glad reality<\/p>\n

Beyond my body in another’s being:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have found the deep unchanging soul of love.<\/p>\n

Then how shall I desire a lonely good,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr slay, aspiring to white vacant peace,<\/p>\n

The endless hope that made my soul spring forth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of its infinite solitude and sleep?<\/p>\n

My spirit has glimpsed the glory for which it came,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe beating of one vast heart in the flame of things,<\/p>\n

My eternity clasped by his eternity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, tireless of the sweet abysms of Time,<\/p>\n

Deep possibility always to love.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis, this is first, last joy and to its throb<\/p>\n

The riches of a thousand fortunate years<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAre poverty. Nothing to me are death and grief<\/p>\n

Or ordinary lives and happy days.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd what to me are common souls of men<\/p>\n

Or eyes and lips that are not Satyavan’s?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have no need to draw back from his arms<\/p>\n

And the discovered paradise of his love<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd journey into a still infinity.<\/p>\n

Only now for my soul in Satyavan<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI treasure the rich occasion of my birth:<\/p>\n

In sunlight and a dream of emerald ways<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI shall walk with him like gods in Paradise.<\/p>\n

If for a year, that year is all my life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd yet I know this is not all my fate<\/p>\n

Only to live and love awhile and die.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>435<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

For I know now why my spirit came on earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd who I am and who he is I love.<\/p>\n

I have looked at him from my immortal Self,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have seen God smile at me in Satyavan;<\/p>\n

I have seen the Eternal in a human face.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen none could answer to her words. Silent<\/p>\n

They sat and looked into the eyes of Fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>436<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

  BOOK SIX   The Book of Fate   Canto One   The Word of Fate   IN SILENT bounds bordering the mortal’s plane Crossing…<\/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-2454","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\/2454","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=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}