{"id":2474,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2474"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","slug":"24-canto-four-the-vision-and-the-boon-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/24-canto-four-the-vision-and-the-boon-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-24_Canto Four – The Vision and the Boon.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Vision and the Boon<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HEN<\/b> suddenly there rose a sacred stir.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmid the lifeless silence of the Void<\/p>\n

In a solitude and an immensity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA sound came quivering like a loved footfall<\/p>\n

Heard in the listening spaces of the soul;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA touch perturbed his fibres with delight.<\/p>\n

An Influence had approached the mortal range,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA boundless Heart was near his longing heart,<\/p>\n

A mystic Form enveloped his earthly shape.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll at her contact broke from silence’ seal;<\/p>\n

Spirit and body thrilled identified,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLinked in the grasp of an unspoken joy;<\/p>\n

Mind, members, life were merged in ecstasy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIntoxicated as with nectarous rain<\/p>\n

His nature’s passioning stretches flowed to her,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFlashing with lightnings, mad with luminous wine.<\/p>\n

All was a limitless sea that heaved to the moon.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA divinising stream possessed his veins,<\/p>\n

His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEach nerve became a burning thread of joy:<\/p>\n

Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves<\/p>\n

Thrilled with the prescience of her longed-for tread<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd filled with flickering crests and praying tongues.<\/p>\n

Even lost in slumber, mute, inanimate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis very body answered to her power.<\/p>\n

The One he worshipped was within him now:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFlame-pure, ethereal-tressed, a mighty Face<\/p>\n

Appeared and lips moved by immortal words;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLids, Wisdom’s leaves, drooped over rapture’s orbs.<\/p>\n

A marble monument of ponderings, shone<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>334<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A forehead, sight’s crypt, and large like ocean’s gaze<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTowards Heaven, two tranquil eyes of boundless thought<\/p>\n

Looked into man’s and saw the god to come.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Shape was seen on threshold Mind, a Voice<\/p>\n

Absolute and wise in the heart’s chambers spoke:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O Son of Strength who climbst creation’s peaks,<\/p>\n

No soul is thy companion in the light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlone thou standest at the eternal doors.<\/p>\n

What thou hast won is thine, but ask no more.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO Spirit aspiring in an ignorant frame,<\/p>\n

O Voice arisen from the Inconscient’s world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHow shalt thou speak for men whose hearts are dumb,<\/p>\n

Make purblind earth the soul’s seer-vision’s home<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr lighten the burden of the senseless globe?<\/p>\n

I am the Mystery beyond reach of mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the goal of the travail of the suns;<\/p>\n

My fire and sweetness are the cause of life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut too immense my danger and my joy.<\/p>\n

Awake not the immeasurable descent,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSpeak not my secret name to hostile Time;<\/p>\n

Man is too weak to bear the Infinite’s weight.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTruth born too soon might break the imperfect earth.<\/p>\n

Leave the all-seeing Power to hew its way:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn thy single vast achievement reign apart<\/p>\n

Helping the world with thy great lonely days.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI ask thee not to merge thy heart of flame<\/p>\n

In the Immobile’s wide uncaring bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTurned from the fruitless motion of the years,<\/p>\n

Deserting the fierce labour of the worlds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAloof from beings, lost in the Alone.<\/p>\n

How shall thy mighty spirit brook repose<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhile Death is still unconquered on the earth<\/p>\n

And Time a field of suffering and pain?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy soul was born to share the laden Force;<\/p>\n

Obey thy nature and fulfil thy fate:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAccept the difficulty and godlike toil,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>335<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

For the slow-paced omniscient purpose live.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Enigma’s knot is tied in humankind.<\/p>\n

A lightning from the heights that think and plan,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPloughing the air of life with vanishing trails,<\/p>\n

Man, sole awake in an unconscious world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAspires in vain to change the cosmic dream.<\/p>\n

Arrived from some half-luminous Beyond<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is a stranger in the mindless vasts;<\/p>\n

A traveller in his oft-shifting home<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmid the tread of many infinities,<\/p>\n

He has pitched a tent of life in desert Space.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeaven’s fixed regard beholds him from above,<\/p>\n

In the house of Nature a perturbing guest,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA voyager twixt Thought’s inconstant shores,<\/p>\n

A hunter of unknown and beautiful Powers,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA nomad of the far mysterious Light,<\/p>\n

In the wide ways a little spark of God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst his spirit all is in dire league,<\/p>\n

A Titan influence stops his Godward gaze.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAround him hungers the unpitying Void,<\/p>\n

The eternal Darkness seeks him with her hands,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInscrutable Energies drive him and deceive,<\/p>\n

Immense implacable deities oppose.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn inert Soul and a somnambulist Force<\/p>\n

Have made a world estranged from life and thought;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Dragon of the dark foundations keeps<\/p>\n

Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn his long way through Time and Circumstance<\/p>\n

The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,<\/p>\n

Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross his path sits the dim camp of Night.<\/p>\n

His day is a moment in perpetual Time;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the prey of the minutes and the hours.<\/p>\n

Assailed on earth and unassured of heaven,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDescended here unhappy and sublime,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>336<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A link between the demigod and the beast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe knows not his own greatness nor his aim;<\/p>\n

He has forgotten why he has come and whence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis spirit and his members are at war;<\/p>\n

His heights break off too low to reach the skies,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis mass is buried in the animal mire.<\/p>\n

A strange antinomy is his nature’s rule.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA riddle of opposites is made his field:<\/p>\n

Freedom he asks but needs to live in bonds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has need of darkness to perceive some light<\/p>\n

And need of grief to feel a little bliss;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has need of death to find a greater life.<\/p>\n

All sides he sees and turns to every call;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has no certain light by which to walk;<\/p>\n

His life is a blind-man’s-buff, a hide-and-seek;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe seeks himself and from himself he runs;<\/p>\n

Meeting himself, he thinks it other than he.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlways he builds, but finds no constant ground,<\/p>\n

Always he journeys, but nowhere arrives;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe would guide the world, himself he cannot guide;<\/p>\n

He would save his soul, his life he cannot save.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe light his soul had brought his mind has lost;<\/p>\n

All he has learned is soon again in doubt;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA sun to him seems the shadow of his thoughts,<\/p>\n

Then all is shadow again and nothing true:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnknowing what he does or whither he tends<\/p>\n

He fabricates signs of the Real in Ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has hitched his mortal error to Truth’s star.<\/p>\n

Wisdom attracts him with her luminous masks,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut never has he seen the face behind:<\/p>\n

A giant Ignorance surrounds his lore.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAssigned to meet the cosmic mystery<\/p>\n

In the dumb figure of a material world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis passport of entry false and his personage,<\/p>\n

He is compelled to be what he is not;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe obeys the Inconscience he had come to rule<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>337<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And sinks in Matter to fulfil his soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwakened from her lower driven forms<\/p>\n

The Earth-Mother gave her forces to his hands<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd painfully he guards the heavy trust;<\/p>\n

His mind is a lost torch-bearer on her roads.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIllumining breath to think and plasm to feel,<\/p>\n

He labours with his slow and sceptic brain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelped by the reason’s vacillating fires,<\/p>\n

To make his thought and will a magic door<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor knowledge to enter the darkness of the world<\/p>\n

And love to rule a realm of strife and hate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mind impotent to reconcile heaven and earth<\/p>\n

And tied to Matter with a thousand bonds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe lifts himself to be a conscious god.<\/p>\n

Even when a glory of wisdom crowns his brow,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen mind and spirit shed a grandiose ray<\/p>\n

To exalt this product of the sperm and gene,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis alchemist’s miracle from plasm and gas,<\/p>\n

And he who shared the animal’s run and crawl<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLifts his thought-stature to the Immortal’s heights,<\/p>\n

His life still keeps the human middle way;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis body he resigns to death and pain,<\/p>\n

Abandoning Matter, his too heavy charge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA thaumaturge sceptic of miracles,<\/p>\n

A spirit left sterile of its occult power<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy an unbelieving brain and credulous heart,<\/p>\n

He leaves the world to end where it began:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis work unfinished he claims a heavenly prize.<\/p>\n

Thus has he missed creation’s absolute.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHalf-way he stops his star of destiny:<\/p>\n

A vast and vain long-tried experiment,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn ill-served high conception doubtfully done,<\/p>\n

The world's life falters on not seeing its goal, \u2014<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA zigzag towards unknown dangerous ground<\/p>\n

Ever repeating its habitual walk,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver retreating after marches long<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>338<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tAnd hardiest victories without sure result,<\/p>\n

Drawn endlessly an inconclusive game.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn an ill-fitting and voluminous robe<\/p>\n

A radiant purpose still conceals its face,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mighty blindness stumbles hoping on,<\/p>\n

Feeding its strength on gifts of luminous Chance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBecause the human instrument has failed,<\/p>\n

The Godhead frustrate sleeps within its seed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA spirit entangled in the forms it made.<\/p>\n

His failure is not failure whom God leads;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThrough all the slow mysterious march goes on:<\/p>\n

An immutable Power has made this mutable world;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA self-fulfilling transcendence treads man’s road;<\/p>\n

The driver of the soul upon its path,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt knows its steps, its way is inevitable,<\/p>\n

And how shall the end be vain when God is guide?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHowever man’s mind may tire or fail his flesh,<\/p>\n

A will prevails cancelling his conscious choice:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe goal recedes, a bourneless vastness calls<\/p>\n

Retreating into an immense Unknown;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is no end to the world’s stupendous march,<\/p>\n

There is no rest for the embodied soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt must live on, describe all Time’s huge curve.<\/p>\n

An Influx presses from the closed Beyond<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForbidding to him rest and earthly ease,<\/p>\n

Till he has found himself he cannot pause.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Light there is that leads, a Power that aids;<\/p>\n

Unmarked, unfelt it sees in him and acts:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIgnorant, he forms the All-Conscient in his depths,<\/p>\n

Human, looks up to superhuman peaks:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA borrower of Supernature’s gold,<\/p>\n

He paves his road to Immortality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe high gods look on man and watch and choose<\/p>\n

Today’s impossibles for the future’s base.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis transience trembles with the Eternal’s touch,<\/p>\n

His barriers cede beneath the Infinite’s tread;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>339<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The Immortals have their entries in his life:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Ambassadors of the Unseen draw near.<\/p>\n

A splendour sullied by the mortal air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove passes through his heart, a wandering guest.<\/p>\n

Beauty surrounds him for a magic hour,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has visits of a large revealing joy,<\/p>\n

Brief widenesses release him from himself,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEnticing towards a glory ever in front<\/p>\n

Hopes of a deathless sweetness lure and leave.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis mind is crossed by strange discovering fires,<\/p>\n

Rare intimations lift his stumbling speech<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo a moment’s kinship with the eternal Word;<\/p>\n

A masque of Wisdom circles through his brain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerturbing him with glimpses half divine.<\/p>\n

He lays his hands sometimes on the Unknown;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe communes sometimes with Eternity.<\/p>\n

A strange and grandiose symbol was his birth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd immortality and spirit-room<\/p>\n

And pure perfection and a shadowless bliss<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAre this afflicted creature’s mighty fate.<\/p>\n

In him the Earth-Mother sees draw near the change<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForeshadowed in her dumb and fiery depths,<\/p>\n

A godhead drawn from her transmuted limbs,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn alchemy of Heaven on Nature’s base.<\/p>\n

Adept of the self-born unfailing line,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeave not the light to die the ages bore,<\/p>\n

Help still humanity’s blind and suffering life:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tObey thy spirit’s wide omnipotent urge.<\/p>\n

A witness to God’s parley with the Night,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt leaned compassionate from immortal calm<\/p>\n

And housed desire, the troubled seed of things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAssent to thy high self, create, endure.<\/p>\n

Cease not from knowledge, let thy toil be vast.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo more can earthly limits pen thy force;<\/p>\n

Equal thy work with long unending Time’s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTraveller upon the bare eternal heights,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>340<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Tread still the difficult and dateless path<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJoining the cycles with its austere curve<\/p>\n

Measured for man by the initiate Gods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy light shall be in thee, my strength thy force.<\/p>\n

Let not the impatient Titan drive thy heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAsk not the imperfect fruit, the partial prize.<\/p>\n

Only one boon, to greaten thy spirit, demand;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly one joy, to raise thy kind, desire.<\/p>\n

Above blind fate and the antagonist powers<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMoveless there stands a high unchanging Will;<\/p>\n

To its omnipotence leave thy work’s result.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll things shall change in God’s transfiguring hour.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAugust and sweet sank hushed that mighty Voice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNothing now moved in the vast brooding space:<\/p>\n

A stillness came upon the listening world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mute immensity of the Eternal’s peace.<\/p>\n

But Aswapati’s heart replied to her,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cry amid the silence of the Vasts:<\/p>\n

“How shall I rest content with mortal days<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the dull measure of terrestrial things,<\/p>\n

I who have seen behind the cosmic mask<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe glory and the beauty of thy face?<\/p>\n

Hard is the doom to which thou bindst thy sons!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHow long shall our spirits battle with the Night<\/p>\n

And bear defeat and the brute yoke of Death,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe who are vessels of a deathless Force<\/p>\n

And builders of the godhead of the race?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr if it is thy work I do below<\/p>\n

Amid the error and waste of human life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the vague light of man’s half-conscious mind,<\/p>\n

Why breaks not in some distant gleam of thee?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver the centuries and millenniums pass.<\/p>\n

Where in the greyness is thy coming’s ray?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere is the thunder of thy victory’s wings?<\/p>\n

Only we hear the feet of passing gods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>341<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A plan in the occult eternal Mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMapped out to backward and prophetic sight,<\/p>\n

The aeons ever repeat their changeless round,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe cycles all rebuild and ever aspire.<\/p>\n

All we have done is ever still to do.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll breaks and all renews and is the same.<\/p>\n

Huge revolutions of life’s fruitless gyre,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe new-born ages perish like the old,<\/p>\n

As if the sad Enigma kept its right<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill all is done for which this scene was made.<\/p>\n

Too little the strength that now with us is born,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToo faint the light that steals through Nature’s lids,<\/p>\n

Too scant the joy with which she buys our pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn a brute world that knows not its own sense,<\/p>\n

Thought-racked upon the wheel of birth we live,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe instruments of an impulse not our own<\/p>\n

Moved to achieve with our heart’s blood for price<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHalf-knowledge, half-creations that soon tire.<\/p>\n

A foiled immortal soul in perishing limbs,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBaffled and beaten back we labour still;<\/p>\n

Annulled, frustrated, spent, we still survive.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn anguish we labour that from us may rise<\/p>\n

A larger-seeing man with nobler heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA golden vessel of the incarnate Truth,<\/p>\n

The executor of the divine attempt<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEquipped to wear the earthly body of God,<\/p>\n

Communicant and prophet and lover and king.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI know that thy creation cannot fail:<\/p>\n

For even through the mists of mortal thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInfallible are thy mysterious steps,<\/p>\n

And, though Necessity dons the garb of Chance,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHidden in the blind shifts of Fate she keeps<\/p>\n

The slow calm logic of Infinity’s pace<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the inviolate sequence of its will.<\/p>\n

All life is fixed in an ascending scale<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd adamantine is the evolving Law;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>342<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

In the beginning is prepared the close.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis strange irrational product of the mire,<\/p>\n

This compromise between the beast and god,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs not the crown of thy miraculous world.<\/p>\n

I know there shall inform the inconscient cells,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt one with Nature and at height with heaven,<\/p>\n

A spirit vast as the containing sky<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd swept with ecstasy from invisible founts,<\/p>\n

A god come down and greater by the fall.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Power arose out of my slumber’s cell.<\/p>\n

Abandoning the tardy limp of the hours<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the inconstant blink of mortal sight,<\/p>\n

There where the Thinker sleeps in too much light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd intolerant flames the lone all-witnessing Eye<\/p>\n

Hearing the word of Fate from Silence’ heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the endless moment of Eternity,<\/p>\n

It saw from timelessness the works of Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOverpassed were the leaden formulas of the Mind,<\/p>\n

Overpowered the obstacle of mortal Space:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe unfolding Image showed the things to come.<\/p>\n

A giant dance of Shiva tore the past;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere was a thunder as of worlds that fall;<\/p>\n

Earth was o’errun with fire and the roar of Death<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClamouring to slay a world his hunger had made;<\/p>\n

There was a clangour of Destruction’s wings:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Titan’s battle-cry was in my ears,<\/p>\n

Alarm and rumour shook the armoured Night.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI saw the Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers<\/p>\n

Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCome crowding down the amber stairs of birth;<\/p>\n

Forerunners of a divine multitude,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the paths of the morning star they came<\/p>\n

Into the little room of mortal life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI saw them cross the twilight of an age,<\/p>\n

The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe great creators with wide brows of calm,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>343<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The massive barrier-breakers of the world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,<\/p>\n

The labourers in the quarries of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe messengers of the Incommunicable,<\/p>\n

The architects of immortality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto the fallen human sphere they came,<\/p>\n

Faces that wore the Immortal’s glory still,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoices that communed still with the thoughts of God,<\/p>\n

Bodies made beautiful by the spirit’s light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCarrying the magic word, the mystic fire,<\/p>\n

Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tApproaching eyes of a diviner man,<\/p>\n

Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFeet echoing in the corridors of Time.<\/p>\n

High priests of wisdom, sweetness, might and bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDiscoverers of beauty’s sunlit ways<\/p>\n

And swimmers of Love’s laughing fiery floods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd dancers within rapture’s golden doors,<\/p>\n

Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd justify the light on Nature’s face.<\/p>\n

Although Fate lingers in the high Beyond<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the work seems vain on which our heart’s force was spent,<\/p>\n

All shall be done for which our pain was borne.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as of old man came behind the beast<\/p>\n

This high divine successor surely shall come<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBehind man’s inefficient mortal pace,<\/p>\n

Behind his vain labour, sweat and blood and tears:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe shall know what mortal mind barely durst think,<\/p>\n

He shall do what the heart of the mortal could not dare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInheritor of the toil of human time,<\/p>\n

He shall take on him the burden of the gods;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll heavenly light shall visit the earth’s thoughts,<\/p>\n

The might of heaven shall fortify earthly hearts;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth’s deeds shall touch the superhuman’s height,<\/p>\n

Earth’s seeing widen into the infinite.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeavy unchanged weighs still the imperfect world;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>344<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The splendid youth of Time has passed and failed;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeavy and long are the years our labour counts<\/p>\n

And still the seals are firm upon man’s soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd weary is the ancient Mother’s heart.<\/p>\n

O Truth defended in thy secret sun,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoice of her mighty musings in shut heavens<\/p>\n

On things withdrawn within her luminous depths,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO Wisdom-Splendour, Mother of the universe,<\/p>\n

Creatrix, the Eternal’s artist Bride,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLinger not long with thy transmuting hand<\/p>\n

Pressed vainly on one golden bar of Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if Time dare not open its heart to God.<\/p>\n

O radiant fountain of the world’s delight<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWorld-free and unattainable above,<\/p>\n

O Bliss who ever dwellst deep-hid within<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhile men seek thee outside and never find,<\/p>\n

Mystery and Muse with hieratic tongue,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIncarnate the white passion of thy force,<\/p>\n

Mission to earth some living form of thee.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne moment fill with thy eternity,<\/p>\n

Let thy infinity in one body live,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll-Knowledge wrap one mind in seas of light,<\/p>\n

All-Love throb single in one human heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImmortal, treading the earth with mortal feet<\/p>\n

All heaven’s beauty crowd in earthly limbs!<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOmnipotence, girdle with the power of God<\/p>\n

Movements and moments of a mortal will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPack with the eternal might one human hour<\/p>\n

And with one gesture change all future time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLet a great word be spoken from the heights<\/p>\n

And one great act unlock the doors of Fate.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis prayer sank down in the resisting Night<\/p>\n

Oppressed by the thousand forces that deny,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if too weak to climb to the Supreme.<\/p>\n

But there arose a wide consenting Voice;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>345<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The spirit of beauty was revealed in sound:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLight floated round the marvellous Vision’s brow<\/p>\n

And on her lips the Immortal’s joy took shape.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry.<\/p>\n

One shall descend and break the iron Law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChange Nature’s doom by the lone spirit’s power.<\/p>\n

A limitless Mind that can contain the world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA sweet and violent heart of ardent calms<\/p>\n

Moved by the passions of the gods shall come.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll mights and greatnesses shall join in her;<\/p>\n

Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDelight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair,<\/p>\n

And in her body as on his homing tree<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImmortal Love shall beat his glorious wings.<\/p>\n

A music of griefless things shall weave her charm;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice,<\/p>\n

The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer lips shall be the honeycombs of God,<\/p>\n

Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise.<\/p>\n

She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStrength shall be with her like a conqueror’s sword<\/p>\n

And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour,<\/p>\n

A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNature shall overleap her mortal step;<\/p>\n

Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs a flame disappears in endless Light<\/p>\n

Immortally extinguished in its source,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVanished the splendour and was stilled the word.<\/p>\n

An echo of delight that once was close,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe harmony journeyed towards some distant hush,<\/p>\n

A music failing in the ear of trance,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cadence called by distant cadences,<\/p>\n

A voice that trembled into strains withdrawn.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>346<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Her form retreated from the longing earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForsaking nearness to the abandoned sense,<\/p>\n

Ascending to her unattainable home.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLone, brilliant, vacant lay the inner fields;<\/p>\n

All was unfilled inordinate spirit space,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIndifferent, waste, a desert of bright peace.<\/p>\n

Then a line moved on the far edge of calm:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe warm-lipped sentient soft terrestrial wave,<\/p>\n

A quick and many-murmured moan and laugh,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCame gliding in upon white feet of sound.<\/p>\n

Unlocked was the deep glory of Silence’ heart;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe absolute unmoving stillnesses<\/p>\n

Surrendered to the breath of mortal air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDissolving boundlessly the heavens of trance<\/p>\n

Collapsed to waking mind. Eternity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCast down its incommunicable lids<\/p>\n

Over its solitudes remote from ken<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBehind the voiceless mystery of sleep.<\/p>\n

The grandiose respite failed, the wide release.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross the light of fast-receding planes<\/p>\n

That fled from him as from a falling star,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCompelled to fill its human house in Time<\/p>\n

His soul drew back into the speed and noise<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf the vast business of created things.<\/p>\n

A chariot of the marvels of the heavens<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBroad-based to bear the gods on fiery wheels,<\/p>\n

Flaming he swept through the spiritual gates.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mortal stir received him in its midst.<\/p>\n

Once more he moved amid material scenes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLifted by intimations from the heights<\/p>\n

And in the pauses of the building brain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTouched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge<\/p>\n

Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe eternal seeker in the aeonic field<\/p>\n

Besieged by the intolerant press of hours<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgain was strong for great swift-footed deeds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>347<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Awake beneath the ignorant vault of Night,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe saw the unnumbered people of the stars<\/p>\n

And heard the questioning of the unsatisfied flood<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd toiled with the form-maker, measuring Mind.<\/p>\n

A wanderer from the occult invisible suns<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAccomplishing the fate of transient things,<\/p>\n

A god in the figure of the arisen beast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe raised his brow of conquest to the heavens<\/p>\n

Establishing the empire of the soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn Matter and its bounded universe<\/p>\n

As on a solid rock in infinite seas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Lord of Life resumed his mighty rounds<\/p>\n

In the scant field of the ambiguous globe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEND OF<\/font>
\n\t\t\tBOOK<\/font> THREE<\/font>,
\n\t\t\tCANTO<\/font> FOUR<\/font><\/p>\n

END OF<\/font> PART<\/font> ONE<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>348<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

  Canto Four   The Vision and the Boon   THEN suddenly there rose a sacred stir. Amid the lifeless silence of the Void In…<\/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-2474","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\/2474","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=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}