{"id":3309,"date":"2013-07-13T01:47:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:47:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:23","slug":"24-book-10-canto-4-the-dream-twilight-of-the-earthly-real-vol-02-savitri-1951","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/02-savitri-1951\/24-book-10-canto-4-the-dream-twilight-of-the-earthly-real-vol-02-savitri-1951","title":{"rendered":"-24_Book 10 Canto 4 The Dream Twilight of The Earthly Real.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n

CANTO FOUR<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE EARTHLY REAL<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n

\nTHERE came a slope that slowly
\ndownward sank; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt slipped towards a stumbling grey
\ndescent.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThe dim-heart marvel of the ideal was lost,<\/p>\n

\nIts crowding wonder of bright delicate dreams<\/p>\n

\nAnd vague half-limned sublimities she had left: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThought fell towards lower levels,
\nhard and tense<\/P><\/p>\n

\nIt passioned for some crude reality.<\/p>\n

\nThe twilight floated still but changed its hues<\/p>\n

\nAnd heavily swathed a less delightful dream; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIt settled in tired masses on the
\nair; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIts symbol colours tuned with
\nduller reds <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd almost seemed a lurid mist of
\nday. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA straining taut and dire besieged
\nher heart; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHeavy her sense grew with a
\ndangerous load,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nAnd sadder, greater sounds were in her ears,<\/p>\n

\nAnd through stem breakings of the lambent glare<\/p>\n

\nHer vision caught a hurry of driving plains<\/p>\n

\nAnd cloudy mountains and wide tawny streams,<\/p>\n

\nAnd cities climbed in minarets and towers<\/p>\n

\nTowards an unavailing changeless sky: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nLong quays and ghauts and harbours
\nwhite with sails <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nChallenged her sight awhile and
\nthen were gone. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAmidst them travailed toiling
\nmultitudes <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn ever shifting perishable groups, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA foiled cinema of lit shadowy
\nshapes <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEnveloped in the grey mantle of a
\ndream. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nImagining meanings in life's heavy
\ndrift, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThey trusted in the uncertain
\nenvironment <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd waited for death to change
\ntheir spirit's scene. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA savage din of labour and a tramp <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Page   270<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nOf armoured life and the monotonous
\nhum<\/P><\/p>\n

\nOf thoughts and acts that ever were the same,<\/p>\n

\nAs if the dull reiterated drone<\/p>\n

\nOf a great brute machine, beset her soul,<\/p>\n

\nA grey dissatisfied rumour like a ghost<\/p>\n

\nOf the moaning of a loud unquiet sea.<\/p>\n

\nA huge inhuman Cyclopean voice,<\/p>\n

\nA Babel-builder's song towering to heaven,<\/p>\n

\nA throb of engines and the clang of tools<\/p>\n

\nBrought the deep undertone of labour's pain.<\/p>\n

\nAs when pale lightnings tear a tortured sky,<\/p>\n

\nHigh overhead a cloud-rimmed series flared<\/p>\n

\nChasing like smoke from a red funnel driven,<\/p>\n

\nThe forced creations of an ignorant Mind; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nDrifting she saw like pictured
\nfragments flee<\/P><\/p>\n

\nPhantoms of human thought and baffled hopes,<\/p>\n

\nThe shapes of Nature and the arts of man,<\/p>\n

\nPhilosophies and disciplines and laws,<\/p>\n

\nAnd the dead spirit of old societies,<\/p>\n

\nConstructions of the Titan and the worm.<\/p>\n

\nAs if lost remnants of forgotten light,<\/p>\n

\nBefore her mind there fled with trailing wings<\/p>\n

\nDimmed revelations and delivering words,<\/p>\n

\nEmptied of their mission and their strength to save,<\/p>\n

\nThe messages of the evangelist gods,<\/p>\n

\nVoices of prophets, scripts of vanishing creeds.<\/p>\n

\nEach in its hour eternal claimed went by: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nIdeals, systems, sciences, poems,
\ncrafts <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nTireless there perished and again
\nrecurred, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSought restlessly by some creative
\nPower. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut all were dreams crossing an
\nempty vast. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAscetic voices called of lonely
\nseers <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOn mountain summits or on river
\nbanks <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr from the desolate heart of
\nforest glades <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSeeking heaven's rest or the
\nspirit's worldless peace, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr in bodies motionless like
\nstatues, fixed <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn tranced cessations of their
\nsleepless thought <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSat sleeping souls, and this too
\nwas a dream. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAll things the past has made and
\nslain were there, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIts lost forgotten forms that once
\nhad lived, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Page   271<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nAnd all the present loves as
\nnew-revealed<\/P><\/p>\n

\nAnd all the hopes the future brings had failed<\/p>\n

\nAlready, caught and spent in efforts vain,<\/p>\n

\nRepeated fruitlessly age after age.<\/p>\n

\nUnwearied all returned insisting still<\/p>\n

\nBecause of joy in the anguish of pursuit<\/p>\n

\nAnd joy to labour and to win and lose<\/p>\n

\nAnd joy to create and keep and joy to kill.<\/p>\n

\nThe rolling cycles passed and came again,<\/p>\n

\nBrought the same toils and the same barren end,<\/p>\n

\nForms ever new and ever old, the long<\/p>\n

\nAppalling revolutions of the world.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\n

\n     Once more
\narose the great destroying Voice: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAcross the fruitless labour of the
\nworlds<\/P><\/p>\n

\nHis huge denial's all-defeating might<\/p>\n

\nPursued the ignorant march of dolorous Time.<\/p>\n

\n"Behold the figures of this symbol realm,<\/p>\n

\nIts solid outlines of creative dream<\/p>\n

\nInspiring the great concrete tasks of earth.<\/p>\n

\nIn its motion parable of human life<\/p>\n

\nHere thou canst trace the outcome Nature gives<\/p>\n

\nTo the sin of being and the error in things<\/p>\n

\nAnd the desire that compels to live<\/p>\n

\nAnd man's incurable malady of hope.<\/p>\n

\nIn an immutable order's hierarchy<\/p>\n

\nWhere Nature changes not, man cannot change: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nEver he obeys her fixed mutation's
\nlaw; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn a new version of her oft-told
\ntale<\/P><\/p>\n

\nIn ever-wheeling cycles turns the race.<\/p>\n

\nHis mind is pent in circling boundaries: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nFor mind is man, beyond thought he
\ncannot soar.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nIf he could leave his limits he would be safe: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHe sees but cannot mount to his
\ngreater heavens; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEven winged, he sinks back to his
\nnative soil.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nHe is a captive in his net of mind<\/p>\n

\nAnd beats soul-wings against the walls of life.<\/p>\n

\nIn vain his heart lifts up its yearning prayer,<\/p>\n

\nPeopling with brilliant Gods the formless Void; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThen disappointed to the Void he
\nturns <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Page   272<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nAnd in its happy nothingness asks
\nrelease,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThe calm Nirvana of his dream of self: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Word in silence ends, in Nought
\nthe name.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nApart amid the mortal multitudes,<\/p>\n

\nHe calls the Godhead incommunicable<\/p>\n

\nTo be the lover of his lonely soul<\/p>\n

\nOr casts his spirit into its void embrace,<\/p>\n

\nOr he finds his copy in the impartial All; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHe imparts to the Immobile his own
\nwill,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nAttributes to the Eternal wrath and love<\/p>\n

\nAnd to the Ineffable lends a thousand names.<\/p>\n

\nHope not to call God down into his life: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHow shalt thou bring the
\nEverlasting here?<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThere is no house for him in hurrying Time.<\/p>\n

\nVainly thou seek'st in Matter's world an aim; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nNo aim is there, only a will to be.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nAll walk by Nature bound for ever the same.<\/p>\n

\nLook on these forms that stay awhile and pass,<\/p>\n

\nThese lives that long and strive, then are no more,<\/p>\n

\nThese structures that have no abiding truth,<\/p>\n

\nThe saviour creeds that cannot save themselves,<\/p>\n

\nBut perish in the strangling hands of the years,<\/p>\n

\nDiscarded from man's thought, proved false by Time,<\/p>\n

\nPhilosophies that strip all problems bare<\/p>\n

\nBut nothing ever have solved since earth began,<\/p>\n

\nAnd sciences omnipotent in vain<\/p>\n

\nBy which men learn of what the suns are made,<\/p>\n

\nTransform all forms to serve their outward needs,<\/p>\n

\nRide through the sky and sail beneath the sea,<\/p>\n

\nBut learn not what they are or why they came; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThese polities, architectures of
\nman's brain,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThat, bricked with evil and good, wall in man's spirit<\/p>\n

\nAnd, fissured houses, palace at once and jail,<\/p>\n

\nRot while they reign and crumble before they crash;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThese revolutions, demon or drunken
\ngod,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nConvulsing the wounded body of mankind<\/p>\n

\nOnly to paint in new colours an old face; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThese wars, carnage triumphant,
\nruin gone mad, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe work of centuries vanishing in
\nan hour, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe blood of the vanquished and the
\nvictor's crown <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

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


\nPage   273<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nWhich men to be born must pay for
\nwith their pain,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThe hero's face divine on satyr's limbs,<\/p>\n

\nThe demon's grandeur mixed with the demi-god's,<\/p>\n

\nThe glory and the beasthood and the shame; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nWhy is it all, the labour and the
\ndin,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nThe transient joys, the timeless sea of tears,<\/p>\n

\nThe longing and the hoping and the cry,<\/p>\n

\nThe battle and the victory and the fall,<\/p>\n

\nThe aimless journey that can never pause,<\/p>\n

\nThe waking toil, the incoherent sleep?<\/p>\n

\nSong, shouts and weeping, wisdom and idle words,<\/p>\n

\nThe laughter of men, the irony of the gods?<\/p>\n

\nWhere leads the march, whither the pilgrimage?<\/p>\n

\nWho keeps the map of the route or planned each stage?<\/p>\n

\nOr else self-moved the world walks its own way?<\/p>\n

\nOr nothing is there but only a Mind that dreams: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe world is a myth that happened
\nto come true,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nA legend told to itself by conscious Mind,<\/p>\n

\nImaged and played on a feigned Matter's ground<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn which it stands in an
\nunsubstantial Vast.<\/p>\n

\nMind is the author, spectator, actor, stage: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nMind only is and what it thinks is
\nseen.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nIf Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIf Mind is all, renounce the hope
\nof Truth.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nFor Mind can never touch the body of Truth<\/p>\n

\nAnd Mind can never see the soul of God; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nOnly his shadow it grasps nor hears
\nhis laugh <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAs it turns from him to the vain
\nseeming of things. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nMind is a tissue woven of light and
\nshade <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere right and wrong have sewn
\ntheir mingled parts; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr Mind is Nature's marriage of
\ncovenance<\/P><\/p>\n

\nBetween truth and falsehood, between joy and pain: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis struggling pair no court can
\nseparate.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nEach thought is a gold coin with bright alloy<\/p>\n

\nAnd error and truth are its obverse and reverse:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis is the imperial mintage of the
\nbrain<\/P><\/p>\n

\nAnd of this kind is all its currency.<\/p>\n

\nThink not to plant on earth the living Truth<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/font><\/p>\n

\nOr make of Matter's world the home
\nof God; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nTruth comes not there but only the
\nthought of Truth, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Page   274<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nGod is not there but only the name
\nof God. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf Self there is, it is bodiless
\nand unborn, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is no one and it is possessed by
\nnone, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOn what shalt thou then build thy
\nhappy world? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nCast off thy life and mind, then
\nart thou Self, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAn all-seeing Omnipresence stark,
\nalone, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf God there is he cares not for
\nthe world; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAll things he sees with calm
\nindifferent gaze,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nHe has doomed all hearts to sorrow and desire,<\/p>\n

\nHe has bound all life with his implacable laws; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHe answers not the ignorant voice
\nof prayer.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nEternal while the ages toil beneath,<\/p>\n

\nUnmoved, untouched by aught that he has made,<\/p>\n

\nHe sees as minute details mid the stars<\/p>\n

\nThe animal's agony and the fate of man: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nImmeasurably wise, he exceeds thy
\nthought; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHis solitary joy needs not thy
\nlove. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHis truth in human thinking cannot
\ndwell: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf thou desirest truth then still
\nthy mind<\/P><\/p>\n

\nFor ever, slain by the dumb unseen Light.<\/p>\n

\nImmortal bliss lives not in human air: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHow shall the mighty Mother her
\ncalm delight <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nKeep fragrant in this narrow
\nfragile vase <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr lodge her sweet unbroken ecstasy <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn hearts which earthly sorrow can
\nassail <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd bodies careless Death can slay
\nat will? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nDream not to change the world that
\nGod has planned, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nStrive not to alter his eternal
\nlaw. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf heavens there are whose gates
\nare shut to grief, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThere seek the joy thou couldst not
\nfind on earth; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr in the imperishable hemisphere<\/P><\/p>\n

\nWhere Light is native and Delight is king<\/p>\n

\nAnd Spirit is the deathless ground of Things,<\/p>\n

\nChoose thy high station, child of Eternity.<\/p>\n

\nIf thou art Spirit and Nature is thy robe,<\/p>\n

\nCast off thy garb and be thy naked self<\/p>\n

\nImmutable in its undying truth,<\/p>\n

\nAlone for ever in the mute Alone.<\/p>\n

\nTurn then to God, for him leave all behind; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nForgetting Love, forgetting
\nSatyavan, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Page   275<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nAnnul thyself in his immobile
\npeace. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nO soul, drown in his still
\nbeatitude. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFor thou must die to thyself to
\nreach God's height: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nI, Death, am the gate of
\nimmortality."<\/P><\/p>\n

\nBut Savitri answered to the sophist God: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"Once more wilt thou call Light to
\nblind Truth's eyes,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nMake knowledge a catch of the snare of Ignorance<\/p>\n

\nAnd the Word a dart to slay my living Soul?<\/p>\n

\nOffer, 0 king, thy boons to tired spirits<\/p>\n

\nAnd hearts that could not bear the wounds of Time,<\/p>\n

\nLet those who were tied to body and to mind,<\/p>\n

\nTear off those bonds and flee into white calm<\/p>\n

\nCrying for a refuge from the play of God,<\/p>\n

\nSurely thy boons are great since thou art He!<\/p>\n

\nBut how shall I seek rest in endless peace<\/p>\n

\nWho house the mighty Mother's violent force,<\/p>\n

\nHer vision turned to read the enigmaed world,<\/p>\n

\nHer will tempered in the blaze of Wisdom's sun<\/p>\n

\nAnd the flaming silence of her heart of love?<\/p>\n

\nThe world is a spiritual paradox<\/p>\n

\nInvented by a need in the Unseen,<\/p>\n

\nA poor translation to the creature's sense<\/p>\n

\nOf That which for ever exceeds idea and speech,<\/p>\n

\nA symbol of what can never be symbolised,<\/p>\n

\nA language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true.'<\/p>\n

\nIts powers have come from the eternal heights<\/p>\n

\nAnd plunged into the inconscient dim Abyss<\/p>\n

\nAnd risen from it to do their marvellous work.<\/p>\n

\nThe soul is a figure of the Unmanifest,<\/p>\n

\nThe mind labours to think the Unthinkable,<\/p>\n

\nThe life to call the Immortal into birth,<\/p>\n

\nThe body to enshrine the Illimitable.<\/p>\n

\nThe world is not cut off from Truth and God.<\/p>\n

\nIn vain thou hast dug the dark unbridgeable gulf,<\/p>\n

\nIn vain thou hast built the blind and doorless wall: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nMan's soul crosses through thee to
\nParadise,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nHeaven's sun forces its way through death and night; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIts light is seen upon our being's
\nverge.<\/P><\/p>\n

\nMy mind is a torch lit from the eternal sun,<\/p>\n

\nMy life a breath drawn by the immortal Guest, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Page   276<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nMy mortal body is the Eternal's
\nhouse, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAlready the torch becomes the
\nundying ray, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAlready the life is the Immortal's
\nforce, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe house grows of the householder
\npart and one. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHow sayst thou Truth can never
\nlight the human mind <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd Bliss can never invade the
\nmortal's heart <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr God descend into the world he
\nmade? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf in the meaningless Void creation
\nrose, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf from a bodiless Force Matter was
\nborn, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf Life could climb in the
\nunconscious tree, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf green delight break into emerald
\nleaves <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd its laughter of beauty blossom
\nin the flower, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf sense could wake in tissue,
\nnerve and cell, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd Thought seize the grey matter
\nof the brain, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd soul peep from its secrecy
\nthrough the flesh, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHow shall the nameless light not
\nleap on men, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd unknown powers emerge from
\nNature's sleep? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEven now hints of a luminous Truth
\nlike stars <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nArise in the mind-mooned splendour
\nof Ignorance; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEven now the deathless Lover's
\ntouch we feel: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the chamber's door is even a
\nlittle ajar,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nWhat then can hinder God from stealing in<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/font><\/p>\n

\nOr who forbid his kiss on the
\nsleeping soul?<\/p>\n

\nAlready God is near, the Truth is close: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBecause the dark atheist body knows
\nhim not,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nMust the sage deny the Light, the seer his soul?<\/p>\n

\nI am not bound by thought or sense or shape; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nI live in the glory of the
\nInfinite,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nI am near to the Nameless and Unknowable,<\/p>\n

\nThe Ineffable is now my household mate.<\/p>\n

\nBut standing on Eternity's luminous brink<\/p>\n

\nI have discovered that the world was He; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nI have met Spirit with spirit. Self
\nwith self,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nBut I have loved too the body of my God.<\/p>\n

\nI have pursued him in his earthly form.<\/p>\n

\nA lonely freedom cannot satisfy<\/p>\n

\nA heart that has grown one with every heart: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nI am a deputy of the aspiring
\nworld,<\/P><\/p>\n

\nMy spirit's liberty I ask for all." <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage  277<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\n   Then rang again a deeper cry of Death.
\nAs if beneath its weight of sterile law
\nOppressed by its own obstinate meaningless will,
\nDisdainful, weary and compassionate,
\nIt kept no more its old intolerant sound,
\nBut seemed like life's in her unnumbered paths,
\nToiling for ever and achieving nought .
\n<\/i>Because of birth and change, her mortal powers
\nBy which she lasts, around the term posts fixed
\nTurning of a wide circling aimless race
\nWhose course for ever speeds and is the same.
\nIn its long play with Fate and Chance and Time
\nAssured of the game's vanity lost or won,
\nCrushed by its load of ignorance and doubt
\nWhich knowledge seems to increase and growth to enlarge,
\nThe earth-mind sinks and it despairs and looks
\nOld, weary and discouraged on its work.
\nYet was all nothing then or vainly achieved?
\nSome great thing has been done, some light, some power
\nDelivered from the huge Inconscient's grasp: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt has emerged from night; it sees its dawns
\nCircling for ever though no dawn can stay.
\nThis change was in the godhead's far-flung voice; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis form of dread was altered and admitted <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOur transient effort at eternity, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet flung vast doubts of what might else have been
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn grandiose hints of an impossible day. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe great voice surging cried to Savitri: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n"Because thou knowst the wisdom that transcends
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBoth veil of forms and the contempt of forms,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nArise delivered by the seeing gods. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf free thou hadst kept thy mind from life's fierce
\nstress, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThou mightst have been like them omniscient, calm.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut the violent and passionate heart forbids.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is the storm bird of an anarch Power <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat would upheave the world and tear from it
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe indecipherable scroll of Fate, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nDeath's rule and Law and the unknowable Will.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHasteners to action, violators of God <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAre these great spirits who have too much love,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 278<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nAnd they who formed like thee, for both art thou,
\nHave come into the narrow bounds of life
\nWith too large natures overleaping time.
\nWorshippers of force who know not her recoil,
\nTheir giant wills compel the troubled years.
\nThe wise are tranquil, silent the great hills
\nRise ceaselessly towards their unreached sky,
\nSeated on their unchanging base, their heads
\nDreamless in heaven's immutable domain.
\nOn their aspiring tops, sublime and still,
\nLifting half-way to heaven the climbing soul
\nThe mighty mediators stand content
\nTo watch the revolutions of the stars.
\nMotionlessly moving with the might of earth,
\nThey see the ages pass and are the same.
\nThe wise think with the cycles, they hear the tread
\nOf far-off things; patient, unmoved they keep
\nTheir dangerous wisdom in their depths restrained,
\nLest man's frail days into the unknown should sink
\nDragged like a ship by bound leviathan
\nInto the abyss of his stupendous seas.
\nLo, how all shakes when the gods tread too near!
\nAll moves, is in peril, anguished, torn, upheaved.
\nThe hurrying aeons would stumble on too swift
\nIf strength from heaven surprised the imperfect earth
\nAnd veilless knowledge smote these unfit souls.
\nThe deities have screened their dreadful power: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nGod hides his thought and, even, he seems to err.
\nBe still and tardy in the slow wise world.
\nMighty art thou with the dread goddess filled,
\nTo whom thou criedst at dawn in the dim woods.
\nUse not thy strength like the wild Titan souls!
\nTouch not the seated lines, the ancient laws,
\nRespect the calm of great established things."
\nBut Savitri replied to the huge god: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"What is the calm thou vauntst, O Law, O Death?
\n<\/b>Is it not the dull-visioned tread inert
\nOf monstrous energies chained in a stark round
\nSoulless and stone-eyed with mechanic dreams?
\nVain the soul's hope if changeless Law is all: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Page 279<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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\nEver to the new and the unknown press on
\nThe speeding aeons justifying God.
\nWhat were earth's ages if the grey restraint
\nWere never broken and glories sprang not forth
\nBursting their obscure seed, while man's slow life
\nLeaped hurried into sudden splendid paths
\nBy divine words and human gods revealed?
\nImpose not upon sentient minds and hearts
\nThe dull fixity that binds inanimate things.
\nWell is the unconscious rule for the animal breeds
\nContent to live beneath the immutable yoke; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMan turns to a nobler walk, a master path.
\nI trample on thy law with living feet; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor to arise in freedom I was born. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf I am mighty let my force be unveiled <\/font><\/p>\n

\nEqual companion of the dateless powers, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOr else let my frustrated soul sink down <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nUnworthy of Godhead in the original sleep. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nI claim from Time my will's eternity, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nGod from his moments." Death replied to her, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n"Why should the noble and immortal will <\/font><\/p>\n

\nStoop to the petty works of transient earth, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFreedom forgotten and the Eternal's path? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOr is this the high use of strength and thought,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo struggle with the bonds of death and time <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd spend the labour that might earn the gods
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd battle and bear agony of wounds <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo grasp the trivial joys that earth can guard
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn her small treasure-chest of passing things?
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nChild, hast thou trodden the gods beneath thy feet
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOnly to win poor shreds of earthly life <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor him thou lov'st cancelling the grand release,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nKeeping from early rapture of the heavens <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHis soul the lenient deities have called? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAre thy arms sweeter than the courts of God?"
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nShe answered, "Straight I trample on the road
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe strong hand hewed for me which planned our
\npaths. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI run where his sweet dreadful voice commands
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd I am driven by the reins of God. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhy drew he wide his scheme of mighty worlds <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage 280<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nOr filled infinity with his passionate breath?
\nOr wherefore did he build my mortal form
\nAnd sow in me his bright and proud desires,
\nIf not to achieve, to flower in me, to love,
\nCarving his human image richly shaped
\nIn thoughts and largenesses and golden powers?
\nFar Heaven can wait our coming in its calm.
\nEasy the heavens were to build for God.
\nEarth was his difficult matter, earth the glory
\nGave of the problem and the race and strife.
\nThere are the ominous masks, the terrible powers,
\nThere it is greatness to create the gods.
\nIs not the spirit immortal and absolved
\nAlways, delivered from the grasp of Time?
\nWhy came it down into the mortal's Space?
\nA charge he gave to his high spirit in man
\nAnd wrote a hidden decree on Nature's tops.
\nFreedom is this with ever seated soul,
\nLarge in life's limits, strong in Matter's knots,
\nBuilding great stuff of action from the worlds
\nTo make fine wisdom from coarse scattered strands
\nAnd love and beauty out of war and night,
\nThe wager wonderful, the game divine.
\nWhat liberty has the soul which feels not free
\nUnless stripped bare and cannot kiss the bonds
\nThe Lover winds around his playmate's limbs,
\nChoosing his tyranny, crushed in his embrace?
\nTo seize him better with her boundless heart
\nShe accepts the limiting circle of his arms,
\nBows full of bliss beneath his mastering hands
\nAnd laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free.
\nThis is my answer to thy lures, O Death." <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n     Immutable, Death's denial
\nmet her cry: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"However mighty, whatever thy secret name <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nUttered in hidden conclaves of the gods, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThy heart's ephemeral passion cannot break <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe iron rampart of accomplished things <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith which the great Gods fence their camp in
\nSpace. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhoever thou art behind thy human mask, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 281<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nEven if thou art the Mother of the worlds
\nAnd pegg'st thy claim upon the realms of Chance,
\nThe cosmic Law is greater than thy will.
\nEven God himself obeys the Laws he made: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Law abides and never can it change,
\nThe Person is a bubble on Time's sea.
\nA forerunner of a greater Truth to come,
\nThy soul creator of its freer Law,
\nVaunting a Force behind on which it leans,
\nA Light above which none but thou hast seen,
\nThou claimst the first fruits of Truth's victory.
\nBut what is Truth and who can find her form
\nAmid the specious images of sense,
\nAmid the crowding guesses of the mind
\nAnd the dark ambiguities of a world
\nPeopled with the incertitudes of Thought?
\nFor where is Truth and when was her footfall heard
\nAmid the endless clamour of Time's mart
\nAnd which is her voice amid the thousand cries
\nThat cross the listening brain and cheat the soul?
\nOr is Truth aught but a high starry name,
\nOr a vague and splendid word by which man's thought
\nSanctions and consecrates his nature's choice,
\nThe heart's wish donning knowledge as its robe,
\nThe cherished idea elect among the elect,
\nThought's favourite mid the children of half-light
\nWho high-voiced crowd the playgrounds of the mind
\nOr people its dormitories in infant sleep?
\nAll things hang here between God's yes and no,
\nTwo Powers real but to each other untrue,
\nTwo consort stars in the mooned night of mind
\nThat towards two opposite horizons gaze,
\nThe white head and black tail of the mystic drake,
\nThe swift and the lame foot, wing strong, wing broken
\nSustaining the body of the uncertain world,
\nA great surreal dragon in the skies.
\nToo dangerously thy high proud truth must live
\nEntangled in Matter's mortal littleness.
\nAll in this world is true, yet all is false: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIts thoughts into an eternal cipher run, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage 282<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nIts deeds swell to Time's rounded zero sum. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThus man at once is animal and god, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA disparate enigma of God's mate <\/font><\/p>\n

\nUnable to free the Godhead's form within, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA being less than himself, yet something more,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe aspiring animal, the frustrate god, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet neither beast nor deity but man, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut man tied to the kind earth's labour strives to
\nexceed, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nClimbing the stairs of God to higher Things. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nObjects are seemings and none knows their truth,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIdeas are guesses of an ignorant god. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTruth has no home in earth's irrational breast:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet without reason life is a tangle of dreams,
\nBut reason is poised above a dim abyss
\nAnd stands at last upon a plank of doubt.
\nEternal truth lives not with mortal men.
\nOr if she dwells not within thy mortal heart,
\nShow me the body of the living Truth
\nOr draw for me the outline of her face
\nThat I too may obey and worship her.
\nThen will I give thee back thy Satyavan.
\nBut here are only facts and steel-bound Law.
\nThis truth I know that Satyavan is dead
\nAnd even thy sweetness cannot lure him back.
\nNo magic Truth can bring the dead to life,
\nNo power of earth cancel the thing once done,
\nNo joy of the heart can last surviving death,
\nNo bliss persuade the past to live again.
\nBut Life alone can solace the mute Void
\nAnd fill with thought the emptiness of Time.
\nLeave then thy dead, O Savitri, and live."
\nThe Woman answered to the mighty Shade,
\nAnd as she spoke, mortality disappeared,
\nHer Goddess self grew visible in her eyes,
\nLight came a dream of heaven into her face.
\n"O Death, thou too art God and yet not He,
\nBut only his own black shadow on his path
\nAs leaving the Night he takes the upward Way
\nAnd drags with him its clinging inconscient Force.
\nOf God unconscious thou art the dark head, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 283<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nOf his Ignorance thou art the impenitent sign,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOf its vast tenebrous womb the natural child,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn his immortality the sinister bar. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll contraries are aspects of God's face. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Many are the innumerable One, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe One carries the multitude in his breast; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe is the Impersonal, inscrutable, sole, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe is the one infinite Person seeing his world;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Silence bears the Eternal's great dumb seal,
\nHis light inspires the eternal Word; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe is the Immobile's deep and deathless hush,
\nIts white and signless blank negating calm,
\nYet stands the creator Self, the almighty Lord
\nAnd watches his will done by the forms of gods
\nAnd the desire that goads half-conscious man
\nAnd the reluctant and unseeing Night.
\nThese wide divine extremes, these inverse powers
\nAre the right and left side of the body of God; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nExistence balanced twixt two mighty arms <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nConfronts the mind with unsolved abysms of Thought.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nDarkness below, a fathomless Light above, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn Light are joined, but sundered by severing Mind
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nStand face to face, opposite, inseparable, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo contraries needed for his great World-task,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTwo poles whose currents wake the immense
\nWorld-Force. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the stupendous secrecy of his Self, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAbove the world brooding with equal wings, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe is both in one beginningless, without end:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTranscending both, he enters the Absolute.
\nHis being is a mystery beyond mind,
\nHis ways bewilder mortal ignorance; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe finite in its little sections parked,
\nAmazed, credits not God's audacity
\nWho dares to be the unimagined All
\nAnd see and act as might one Infinite.
\nAgainst human reason this is his offence; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBeing known to be for ever unknowable,
\nTo be all and yet transcend the mystic whole,
\nAbsolute, to lodge in a relative world of Time,
\nEternal and all-knowing, to suffer birth, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Page 284<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nOmnipotent, to sport with Chance and Fate,
\nSpirit, yet to be Matter and the Void,
\nIllimitable, beyond form or name
\nTo dwell within a body, one and supreme
\nTo be animal and human and divine: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA still deep sea, he laughs in rolling waves:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nUniversal, he is all,\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtranscendent, none.
\nTo man's righteousness this is his cosmic crime,
\nAlmighty beyond good and evil to dwell
\nLeaving the good to their fate in a wicked world
\nAnd evil to reign in this enormous scene.
\nAll opposition seems and strife and chance
\nAn aimless labour with but scanty sense
\nTo eyes that see a part and miss the whole; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe surface men scan, the depths refuse their
\nsearch: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA hybrid mystery challenges the view,
\nOr a discouraging sordid miracle.
\nYet in the exact Inconscient's stark conceit,
\nIn the casual error of the world's ignorance
\nA plan, a hidden Intelligence is glimpsed.
\nThere is a purpose in each stumble and fall; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNature's most careless lolling is a pose
\nPreparing some forward step, some deep result.
\nIngenious notes plugged into a motived score,
\nThese million discords dot the harmonious theme
\nOf the evolution's huge orchestral dance.
\nA Truth supreme has forced the world to be; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt has wrapped itself in Matter as in a shroud,
\nA shroud of Death, a shroud of Ignorance.
\nIt compelled the suns to bum through silent Space,
\nFlame-signs of its uncomprehended Thought
\nIn a wide brooding ether's formless muse: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt made of Knowledge a veiled and struggling light,
\nOf Being a substance nescient, dense and dumb,
\nOf Bliss the beauty of an insentient world.
\nIn finite things the conscious Infinite dwells: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nInvolved it sleeps in Matter's helpless trance,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt rules the world from its sleeping senseless
\nVoid; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nDreaming it throws out mind and heart and soul
\nTo labour crippled, bound, on the hard earth; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 285<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nA broken whole it works through scattered points;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIts gleaming shards are Wisdom's diamond thoughts,
\nIts shadowy reflex our ignorance.
\nIt starts from the mute mass in countless jets,
\nIt fashions a being out of brain and nerve,
\nA sentient creature from its pleasures and pangs.
\nA pack of feelings obscure, a dot of sense
\nSurvives awhile answering the shocks of life,
\nThen crushed or, its force spent, leaves the dead form,
\nLeaves the huge universe in which it lived
\nAn insignificant unconsidered guest.
\nBut the soul grows concealed within its house; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt gives to the body its strength and magnificence;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt follows aims in an ignorant aimless world,
\nIt lends significance to earth's meaningless life.
\nA demi-god animal, came thinking man.
\nHe wallows in mud, yet heavenward soars in thought; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe plays and ponders, laughs and weeps and dreams,
\nSatisfies his little longings like the beast; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe pores upon life's book with student eyes.
\nOut of this tangle of intellect and sense,
\nOut of the narrow scope of finite thought
\nAt last he wakes into spiritual mind; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA high liberty begins and luminous room: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe glimpses eternity, touches the infinite,
\nHe meets the gods in great and sudden hours,
\nHe feels the universe as his larger self,
\nMakes space and time his opportunity
\nTo join the heights and depths of being in light,
\nIn the heart's cave speaks secretly with God.
\nBut these are touches and high moments lived; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFragments of Truth supreme have lit his soul,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nReflections of the sun in waters still. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA few have dared the last supreme ascent <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd break through borders of blinding light above,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd feel a breath around of mightier air, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nReceive a vaster being's messages <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd bathe in its immense intuitive Ray. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn summit Mind are radiant altitudes <\/font><\/p>\n

\nExposed to the lustre of Infinity, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Page 286<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nOutskirts and dependences of the house of Truth,
\nUpraised estates of Mind and measureless.
\nThere man can visit but there he cannot live.
\nA cosmic Thought spreads out its vastitudes; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIts smallest parts are here philosophies
\nChallenging with their detailed immensity,
\nEach figuring an omniscient scheme of things.
\nBut higher still can climb the ascending light; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere are vasts of vision and eternal suns,
\nOceans of an immortal luminousness,
\nFlame-hills assaulting heaven with their peaks,
\nThere dwelling all becomes a blaze of sight; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA burning head of vision leads the mind,
\nThought trails behind it its long comet tail; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe heart glows, an illuminate and seer,
\nAnd sense is kindled into identity: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA highest flight climbs to a deepest view: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n. In a wide opening of its native sky
\nIntuition's lightnings range in a bright pack
\nHunting all hidden truths out of their lairs,
\nIts fiery edge of seeing absolute
\nCleaves into locked unknown retreats of self,
\nRummages the sky-recesses of the brain,
\nLights up the occult chambers of the heart; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIts spear-point ictus of discovery
\nPressed on the cover of name, the screen of form,
\nStrips bare the secret soul of all that is.
\nThought there has revelation's sun-bright eyes; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Word, a mighty and inspiring Voice,
\nEnters Truth's inmost cabin of privacy
\nAnd tears away the veil from God and life.
\nThen stretches the boundless finite's last expanse,
\nThe cosmic empire of the Overmind,
\nTime's buffer state bordering Eternity,
\nToo vast for the experience of man's soul: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll here gathers beneath one golden sky: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Powers that build the cosmos station take
\nIn its house of infinite possibility; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nEach god from there builds his own nature's world;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIdeas are phalanxed like a group of sums; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Page 287<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nThought crowds in masses seized by one regard;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll Time is one body. Space a single book: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is the Godhead's universal gaze
\nAnd there the boundaries of immortal Mind: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe line that parts and joins the hemispheres
\nCloses in on the labour of the Gods
\nFencing eternity from the toil of Time.
\nIn her glorious kingdom of eternal light
\nAll-ruler, ruled by none, the Truth supreme,
\nOmnipotent, omniscient and alone,
\nIn a golden country keeps her measureless house; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn its corridor she hears the tread that comes
\nOut of the Unmanifest never to return
\nTill the Unknown is known and seen by men.
\nAbove the stretch and blaze of cosmic Sight,
\nAbove the silence of the wordless Thought,
\nFormless creator of immortal forms,
\nNameless, investitured with the name divine,
\nTranscending Time's hours, transcending Timelessness,
\nThe Mighty Mother sits in lucent calm
\nAnd holds the eternal Child upon her knees,
\nAttending the day when he shall speak to Fate.
\nThere is the image of our future's hope; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is the sun for which all darkness waits,
\nThere is the imperishable harmony; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe world's contradictions climb to her and are
\none: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is the Truth of which the world's truths are
\nshreds, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Light of which the world's ignorance is the
\nshade <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTill Truth draws back the shade that it has cast,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Love our hearts call down to heal all strife,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Bliss for which the world's derelict sorrows
\nyearn: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThence comes the glory sometimes seen on earth,
\nThe visits of Godhead to the human soul,
\nThe Beauty and the dream on Nature's face.
\nThere the perfection born from eternity
\nCalls to it the perfection born in Time,
\nThe truth of God surprising human life,
\nThe image of God overtaking finite shapes.
\nThere is a world of everlasting Light,
\nIn the realms of the immortal Supermind <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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\n

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

\nTruth who hides here her head in mystery,
\nHer riddle deemed by reason impossible
\nIn the stark structure of material form,
\nUnenigmaed lives, unmasked her face and there
\nIs Nature and the common law of things.
\nThere in a body made of spirit stuff,
\nThe hearth-stone of the everlasting Fire,
\nAction translates the movements of the soul,
\nThought steps infallible and absolute
\nAnd life is a continual worship's rite,
\nA sacrifice of rapture to the One.
\nA cosmic vision, a spiritual sense
\nFeels all the Infinite lodged in finite form
\nAnd seen through a quivering ecstasy of light
\nDiscovers the bright face of the Bodiless,
\nIn the truth of a moment, in the moment's soul
\nCan sip the honey-wine of Eternity.
\nA Spirit who is no one and innumerable,
\nThe one mystic infinite Person of his world
\nMultiplies his myriad personality,
\nOn all his bodies seals his divinity's stamp
\nAnd sits in each immortal and unique.
\nThe Immobile stands behind each daily act,
\nA background of the movement and the scene,
\nUpholding creation on its might and calm
\nAnd change on the Immutable's deathless poise.
\nThe Timeless looks out from the travelling hours,
\nThe Ineffable puts on a robe of speech
\nWhere all its words are woven like magic threads
\nMoving with beauty, inspiring with their gleam,
\nAnd every thought takes up its destined place
\nRecorded in the memory of the world.
\nThe Truth supreme, vast and impersonal
\nFits faultlessly the hour and circumstance,
\nIts substance a pure gold ever the same
\nBut shaped into vessels for the spirit's use,
\nIts gold becomes the wine jar and the vase.
\nAll there is a supreme epiphany: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe All-Wonderful makes a marvel of each event,
\nThe All-Beautiful is a miracle in each shape, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 289<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nThe All-Blissful smites with rapture the heart's
\nthrobs, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA pure celestial joy is the use of sense. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEach being there is a member of the Self, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA portion of the million-thoughted All, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA claimant to the timeless Unity, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe many's sweetness, the joy of difference <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEdged with the intimacy of the One. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n      But who can show to
\nthee Truth's glorious face?
\nOur human words can only shadow her.
\nTo thought she is an unthinkable rapture of light,
\nTo speech a marvel inexpressible.
\nO Death, if thou couldst touch the Truth supreme
\nThou wouldst grow suddenly wise and cease to be.
\nIf our souls could see and love and clasp God's Truth,
\nIts infinite radiance would seize our hearts,
\nOur being in God's image be remade
\nAnd earthly life become the life divine."
\nThen Death the last time answered Savitri: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"If Truth supreme transcends her shadow here
\nSevered by Knowledge and the climbing vasts,
\nWhat bridge can cross the gulf that she has left
\nBetween her and the dream-world she has made?
\nOr who could hope to bring her down to men
\nAnd persuade to tread the harsh globe with wounded feet,
\nLeaving her unapproachable glory and bliss,
\nWasting her splendour on pale earthly air?
\nIs thine that strength, O beauty of mortal limbs,
\nO soul who flutterest to escape my net?
\nWho then art thou hiding in human guise?
\nThy voice carries the sound of infinity,
\nKnowledge is with thee, Truth speaks through thy words; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe light of things beyond shines in thy eyes.
\nBut where is thy strength to conquer Time and Death?
\nHast thou God's force to build heaven's values here?
\nFor truth and knowledge are an idle gleam; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf Knowledge brings not power to change the world,
\nIf Might comes not to give to Truth her right.
\nA blind Force, not Truth has made this ignorant world,
\nA blind Force, not Truth orders the lives of men: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBy Power, not Light, the great Gods rule the world,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 290<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nPower is the arm of God, the seal of Fate.
\nO human claimant to immortality,
\nReveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit's force,
\nThen will I give back to thee Satyavan.
\nOr if the Mighty Mother is with thee,
\nShow me her face that I may worship her; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLet deathless eyes look into the eyes of Death,
\nAn imperishable Force touching brute things
\nTransform earth's death into immortal life.
\nThen can thy dead return to thee and live,
\nThe prostrate earth perhaps shall lift her gaze
\nAnd feel near her the secret body of God
\nAnd love and joy overtake fleeing Time." <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     And Savitri looked on
\nDeath and answered not.
\nAlmost it seemed as if in his symbol shape
\nThe world's darkness had consented to Heaven-light
\nAnd God needed no more the Inconscient's screen.
\nA mighty transformation came on her.
\nA halo of the indwelling Deity,
\nThe Immortal's lustre that had lit her face
\nAnd tented its radiance in her body's house,
\nOverflowing made the air a luminous sea.
\nIn a flaming moment of apocalypse
\nThe Incarnation thrust aside its veil.
\nA little figure in infinity <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet stood and seemed the Eternal's very house,
\nAs if the world's centre was her very soul
\nAnd all wide space was but its outer robe.
\nA curve of the calm hauteur of far heaven
\nDescending into earth's humility,
\nHer forehead's span vaulted the Omniscient's gaze,
\nHer eyes were two stars that watched the universe.
\nThe Power that from her being's summit reigned,
\nThe Presence chambered in lotus secrecy,
\nCame down and held the centre in her brow
\nWhere the mind's Lord in his control-room sits; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere throned on concentration's native seat
\nHe opens that third mysterious eye in man,
\nThe Unseen's eye that looks at the unseen, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Page 291<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nWhen Light with a golden ecstasy fills his brain
\nAnd the Eternal's wisdom drives his choice
\nAnd eternal Will seizes the mortal's will.
\nIt stirred in the lotus of her throat of song,
\nAnd in her speech throbbed the immortal Word,
\nHer life sounded with the steps of the World-Soul
\nMoving in harmony with the cosmic Thought.
\nAs glides God's sun into the mystic cave
\nWhere hides his light from the pursuing gods,
\nIt glided into the lotus of her heart
\nAnd woke in it the Force that alters Fate.
\nIt poured into a navel's lotus depth,
\nLodged in the little life-nature's narrow home,
\nOn the body's longings grew heaven-rapture's flower
\nAnd made desire a pure celestial flame,
\nBroke into the cave where coiled World-Energy sleeps
\nAnd smote the thousand-hooded serpent Force
\nThat blazing towered and clasped the World-Self above,
\nJoined Matter's dumbness to the Spirit's hush
\nAnd filled earth's acts with the Spirit's silent power.
\nThus changed she waited for the Word to speak.
\nEternity looked into the eyes of Death.
\nAnd Darkness saw God's living Reality.
\nThen a Voice was heard that seemed the stillness' self
\nOr the low calm utterance of infinity
\nWhen it speaks to the silence in the heart of sleep,
\n"I hail thee almighty and victorious Death,
\nThou grandiose Darkness of the Infinite.
\nO Void that makest room for all to be,
\nHunger that gnawest at the universe
\nConsuming the cold remnants of the suns
\nAnd eat'st the whole world with thy jaws of fire,
\nWaster of the energy that has made the stars,
\nInconscience, carrier of the seeds of thought,
\nNescience in which All-Knowledge sleeps entombed
\nAnd slowly emerges in its hollow breast
\nWearing the mind's mask of bright Ignorance.
\nThou art my shadow and my instrument.
\nI have given thee thy awful shape of dread
\nAnd thy sharp sword of terror and grief and pain <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 292 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nTo force the soul of man to struggle for light
\nOn the brevity of his half-conscious days.
\nThou art his spur to greatness in his works,
\nThe whip to his yearning for eternal bliss,
\nHis poignant need of immortality.
\nLive, Death, awhile, be still my instrument.
\nOne day man too shall know thy fathomless heart
\nOf silence and the brooding peace of Night
\nAnd grave obedience to eternal Law
\nAnd the calm inflexible pity in thy gaze.
\nBut now, 0 timeless Mightiness, stand aside
\nAnd leave the path of my incarnate Force.
\nRelieve the radiant god from thy black mask,
\nRelease the soul of the world called Satyavan
\nFreed from thy clutch of pain and ignorance
\nThat he may stand master of life and fate,
\nMan's representative in the house of God,
\nThe mate of Wisdom and the spouse of Light,
\nThe eternal bridegroom of the eternal bride."
\nShe spoke. Death unconvinced resisted still,
\nAlthough he knew refusing still to know,
\nAlthough he saw refusing still to see.
\nUnshakable he stood claiming his right.
\nHis spirit bowed; his will obeyed the law
\nOf its own nature binding even on Gods.
\nThe two opposed each other face to face.
\nHis being like a huge fort of darkness towered; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAround it her life grew, an ocean's siege.
\nAwhile the Shade survived defying heaven: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAssailing in front, oppressing from above <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nA concrete mass of conscious power, he <\/b>bore
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe tyranny of her divine desire. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA pressure of intolerable force <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWeighed on his unbowed head and stubborn breast;
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nLight like a burning tongue licked up his thoughts,
\nLight was a luminous torture in his heart; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLight coursed, a splendid agony, through his
\nnerves; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis darkness muttered perishing in her blaze.
\nHer mastering Word commanded every limb
\nAnd left no room for his enormous will <\/font><\/p>\n

\npage 293<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThat seemed pushed out into some helpless space
\nAnd could no more re-enter but left him void.
\nHe called to Night but she fell shuddering back,
\nHe called to Hell but sullenly it retired: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe turned to the Inconscient for support,
\nFrom which he was born, his vast sustaining self: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt drew him back towards boundless vacancy
\nAs if by himself to swallow up himself: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe called to his strength, but it refused his call.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis body was eaten by light, his spirit devoured.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAt last he knew defeat inevitable <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd left crumbling the shape that he had worn,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAbandoning hope to make man's soul his prey <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd force to be mortal the immortal spirit. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAfar he fled shunning her dreaded touch <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd refuge took in the retreating Night. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the dream twilight of that symbol world <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe dire universal Shadow disappeared <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVanishing into the Void from which it came. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAs if deprived of its original cause, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe twilight realm passed fading from their souls,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd Satyavan and Savitri were alone. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut neither stirred: between those figures rose
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA mute invisible and translucent wall. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the long blank moment's pause nothing could
\nmove: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll waited on the unknown inscrutable Will. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nEND OF BOOK TEN<\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n

\npage 294<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

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