{"id":2476,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2476"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:52","slug":"30-canto-two-satyavan-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/30-canto-two-satyavan-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-30_Canto Two – Satyavan.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tSatyavan<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/font>LL SHE<\/b> remembered on this day of Fate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe road that hazarded not the solemn depths<\/p>\n

But turned away to flee to human homes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe wilderness with its mighty monotone,<\/p>\n

The morning like a lustrous seer above,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe passion of the summits lost in heaven,<\/p>\n

The titan murmur of the endless woods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if a wicket gate to joy were there<\/p>\n

Ringed in with voiceless hint and magic sign,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUpon the margin of an unknown world<\/p>\n

Reclined the curve of a sun-held recess;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGroves with strange flowers like eyes of gazing nymphs<\/p>\n

Peered from their secrecy into open space,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBoughs whispering to a constancy of light<\/p>\n

Sheltered a dim and screened felicity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd slowly a supine inconstant breeze<\/p>\n

Ran like a fleeting sigh of happiness<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOver slumbrous grasses pranked with green and gold.<\/p>\n

Hidden in the forest’s bosom of loneliness<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmid the leaves the inmate voices called,<\/p>\n

Sweet like desires enamoured and unseen,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCry answering to low insistent cry.<\/p>\n

Behind slept emerald dumb remotenesses,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHaunt of a Nature passionate, veiled, denied<\/p>\n

To all but her own vision lost and wild.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth in this beautiful refuge free from cares<\/p>\n

Murmured to the soul a song of strength and peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly one sign was there of a human tread:<\/p>\n

A single path, shot thin and arrowlike<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto this bosom of vast and secret life,<\/p>\n

Pierced its enormous dream of solitude.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>392<\/font><\/p>\n

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Here first she met on the uncertain earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe one for whom her heart had come so far.<\/p>\n

As might a soul on Nature’s background limned<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStand out for a moment in a house of dream<\/p>\n

Created by the ardent breath of life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo he appeared against the forest verge<\/p>\n

Inset twixt green relief and golden ray.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if a weapon of the living Light,<\/p>\n

Erect and lofty like a spear of God<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis figure led the splendour of the morn.<\/p>\n

Noble and clear as the broad peaceful heavens<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA tablet of young wisdom was his brow;<\/p>\n

Freedom’s imperious beauty curved his limbs,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe joy of life was on his open face.<\/p>\n

His look was a wide daybreak of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis head was a youthful Rishi’s touched with light,<\/p>\n

His body was a lover’s and a king’s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the magnificent dawning of his force<\/p>\n

Built like a moving statue of delight<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe illumined the border of the forest page.<\/p>\n

Out of the ignorant eager toil of the years<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAbandoning man’s loud drama he had come<\/p>\n

Led by the wisdom of an adverse Fate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo meet the ancient Mother in her groves.<\/p>\n

In her divine communion he had grown<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA foster-child of beauty and solitude,<\/p>\n

Heir to the centuries of the lonely wise,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA brother of the sunshine and the sky,<\/p>\n

A wanderer communing with depth and marge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Veda-knower of the unwritten book<\/p>\n

Perusing the mystic scripture of her forms,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe had caught her hierophant significances,<\/p>\n

Her sphered immense imaginations learned,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTaught by sublimities of stream and wood<\/p>\n

And voices of the sun and star and flame<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd chant of the magic singers on the boughs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>393<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And the dumb teaching of four-footed things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelping with confident steps her slow great hands<\/p>\n

He leaned to her influence like a flower to rain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, like the flower and tree a natural growth,<\/p>\n

Widened with the touches of her shaping hours.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mastery free natures have was his<\/p>\n

And their assent to joy and spacious calm;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne with the single Spirit inhabiting all,<\/p>\n

He laid experience at the Godhead’s feet;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis mind was open to her infinite mind,<\/p>\n

His acts were rhythmic with her primal force;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe had subdued his mortal thought to hers.<\/p>\n

That day he had turned from his accustomed paths;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor One who, knowing every moment’s load,<\/p>\n

Can move in all our studied or careless steps,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHad laid the spell of destiny on his feet<\/p>\n

And drawn him to the forest’s flowering verge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt first her glance that took life’s million shapes<\/p>\n

Impartially to people its treasure-house<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlong with sky and flower and hill and star,<\/p>\n

Dwelt rather on the bright harmonious scene.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt saw the green-gold of the slumbrous sward,<\/p>\n

The grasses quivering with the slow wind’s tread,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe branches haunted by the wild bird’s call.<\/p>\n

Awake to Nature, vague as yet to life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe eager prisoner from the Infinite,<\/p>\n

The immortal wrestler in its mortal house,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts pride, power, passion of a striving God,<\/p>\n

It saw this image of veiled deity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis thinking master creature of the earth,<\/p>\n

This last result of the beauty of the stars,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut only saw like fair and common forms<\/p>\n

The artist spirit needs not for its work<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd puts aside in memory’s shadowy rooms.<\/p>\n

A look, a turn decides our ill-poised fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThus in the hour that most concerned her all,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>394<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tWandering unwarned by the slow surface mind,<\/p>\n

The heedless scout beneath her tenting lids<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAdmired indifferent beauty and cared not<\/p>\n

To wake her body’s spirit to its king.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo might she have passed by on chance ignorant roads<\/p>\n

Missing the call of Heaven, losing life’s aim,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the god touched in time her conscious soul.<\/p>\n

Her vision settled, caught and all was changed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer mind at first dwelt in ideal dreams,<\/p>\n

Those intimate transmuters of earth’s signs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat make known things a hint of unseen spheres,<\/p>\n

And saw in him the genius of the spot,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA symbol figure standing mid earth’s scenes,<\/p>\n

A king of life outlined in delicate air.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet this was but a moment’s reverie;<\/p>\n

For suddenly her heart looked out at him,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe passionate seeing used thought cannot match,<\/p>\n

And knew one nearer than its own close strings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll in a moment was surprised and seized,<\/p>\n

All in inconscient ecstasy lain wrapped<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr under imagination’s coloured lids<\/p>\n

Held up in a large mirror-air of dream,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBroke forth in flame to recreate the world,<\/p>\n

And in that flame to new things she was born.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mystic tumult from her depths arose;<\/p>\n

Haled, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLife ran to gaze from every gate of sense:<\/p>\n

Thoughts indistinct and glad in moon-mist heavens,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFeelings as when a universe takes birth,<\/p>\n

Swept through the turmoil of her bosom’s space<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInvaded by a swarm of golden gods:<\/p>\n

Arising to a hymn of wonder’s priests<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer soul flung wide its doors to this new sun.<\/p>\n

An alchemy worked, the transmutation came;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe missioned face had wrought the Master’s spell.<\/p>\n

In the nameless light of two approaching eyes<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>395<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A swift and fated turning of her days<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAppeared and stretched to a gleam of unknown worlds.<\/p>\n

Then trembling with the mystic shock her heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMoved in her breast and cried out like a bird<\/p>\n

Who hears his mate upon a neighbouring bough.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased;<\/p>\n

The chariot stood like an arrested wind.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Satyavan looked out from his soul’s doors<\/p>\n

And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFill his youth’s purple ambience and endured<\/p>\n

The haunting miracle of a perfect face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMastered by the honey of a strange flower-mouth,<\/p>\n

Drawn to soul-spaces opening round a brow,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe turned to the vision like a sea to the moon<\/p>\n

And suffered a dream of beauty and of change,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDiscovered the aureole round a mortal’s head,<\/p>\n

Adored a new divinity in things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis self-bound nature foundered as in fire;<\/p>\n

His life was taken into another’s life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe splendid lonely idols of his brain<\/p>\n

Fell prostrate from their bright sufficiencies,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs at the touch of a new infinite,<\/p>\n

To worship a godhead greater than their own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn unknown imperious force drew him to her.<\/p>\n

Marvelling he came across the golden sward:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGaze met close gaze and clung in sight’s embrace.<\/p>\n

A visage was there, noble and great and calm,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if encircled by a halo of thought,<\/p>\n

A span, an arch of meditating light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs though some secret nimbus half was seen;<\/p>\n

Her inner vision still remembering knew<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA forehead that wore the crown of all her past,<\/p>\n

Two eyes her constant and eternal stars,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tComrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul,<\/p>\n

Lids known through many lives, large frames of love.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe met in her regard his future’s gaze,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>396<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A promise and a presence and a fire,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSaw an embodiment of aeonic dreams,<\/p>\n

A mystery of the rapture for which all<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYearns in this world of brief mortality<\/p>\n

Made in material shape his very own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis golden figure given to his grasp<\/p>\n

Hid in its breast the key of all his aims,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA spell to bring the Immortal’s bliss on earth,<\/p>\n

To mate with heaven’s truth our mortal thought,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo lift earth-hearts nearer the Eternal’s sun.<\/p>\n

In these great spirits now incarnate here<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove brought down power out of eternity<\/p>\n

To make of life his new undying base.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis passion surged a wave from fathomless deeps;<\/p>\n

It leaped to earth from far forgotten heights,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut kept its nature of infinity.<\/p>\n

On the dumb bosom of this oblivious globe<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough as unknown beings we seem to meet,<\/p>\n

Our lives are not aliens nor as strangers join,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMoved to each other by a causeless force.<\/p>\n

The soul can recognise its answering soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross dividing Time and, on life’s roads<\/p>\n

Absorbed wrapped traveller, turning it recovers<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFamiliar splendours in an unknown face<\/p>\n

And touched by the warning finger of swift love<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt thrills again to an immortal joy<\/p>\n

Wearing a mortal body for delight.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is a Power within that knows beyond<\/p>\n

Our knowings; we are greater than our thoughts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd sometimes earth unveils that vision here.<\/p>\n

To live, to love are signs of infinite things,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove is a glory from eternity’s spheres.<\/p>\n

Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat steal his name and shape and ecstasy,<\/p>\n

He is still the godhead by which all can change.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>397<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A bliss is born that can remake our life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove dwells in us like an unopened flower<\/p>\n

Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr he roams in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things;<\/p>\n

The child-god is at play, he seeks himself<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn many hearts and minds and living forms:<\/p>\n

He lingers for a sign that he can know<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,<\/p>\n

A look, a touch, the meaning of a face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis instrument the dim corporeal mind,<\/p>\n

Of celestial insight now forgetful grown,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe seizes on some sign of outward charm<\/p>\n

To guide him mid the throng of Nature’s hints,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReads heavenly truths into earth’s semblances,<\/p>\n

Desires the image for the godhead’s sake,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDivines the immortalities of form<\/p>\n

And takes the body for the sculptured soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLove’s adoration like a mystic seer<\/p>\n

Through vision looks at the invisible,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn earth’s alphabet finds a godlike sense;<\/p>\n

But the mind only thinks, “Behold the one<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor whom my life has waited long unfilled,<\/p>\n

Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;<\/p>\n

All strives to enforce the unity all is.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToo far from the Divine, Love seeks his truth<\/p>\n

And Life is blind and the instruments deceive<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Powers are there that labour to debase.<\/p>\n

Still can the vision come, the joy arrive.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,<\/p>\n

As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA soul made ready through a thousand years<\/p>\n

Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese knew each other though in forms thus strange.<\/p>\n

Although to sight unknown, though life and mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHad altered to hold a new significance,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>398<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

These bodies summed the drift of numberless births,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the spirit to the spirit was the same.<\/p>\n

Amazed by a joy for which they had waited long,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe lovers met upon their different paths,<\/p>\n

Travellers across the limitless plains of Time<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTogether drawn from fate-led journeyings<\/p>\n

In the self-closed solitude of their human past,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo a swift rapturous dream of future joy<\/p>\n

And the unexpected present of these eyes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy the revealing greatness of a look,<\/p>\n

Form-smitten the spirit’s memory woke in sense.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mist was torn that lay between two lives;<\/p>\n

Her heart unveiled and his to find her turned;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAttracted as in heaven star by star,<\/p>\n

They wondered at each other and rejoiced<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd wove affinity in a silent gaze.<\/p>\n

A moment passed that was eternity’s ray,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn hour began, the matrix of new Time.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>399<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

  Canto Two   Satyavan   ALL SHE remembered on this day of Fate, The road that hazarded not the solemn depths But turned away…<\/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-2476","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\/2476","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=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}