{"id":3451,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3451"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:39","slug":"28-book-four-canto-four-vol-03-savitri-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/03-savitri-1954\/28-book-four-canto-four-vol-03-savitri-1954","title":{"rendered":"-28_Book_Four_Canto_Four.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n

<\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE QUEST<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

T<\/font>HE<\/font><\/b> world-ways opened before Savitri.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

At first a strangeness of new brilliant scenes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPeopled her mind and kept her body’s gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut as she moved across the changing earth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA deeper consciousness welled up in her:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A citizen of many scenes and climes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach soil and country it has made its home;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It took all clans and peoples for her own,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTill the whole destiny of mankind was hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese unfamiliar spaces on her way<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWere known and neighbours to a sense within;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Landscapes recurred like lost forgotten fields,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Cities and rivers and plains her vision claimed<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Like slow-recurring memories in front,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The stars at night were her past’s brilliant friends,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The winds murmured to her of ancient things<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And she met nameless comrades loved by her once.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All was a part of old forgotten selves.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Vaguely or with a flash of sudden hints<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her acts recalled a line of bygone power,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Even her motion’s purpose was not new:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Traveller to a prefigured high event,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She seemed to her remembering witness soul<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 428<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To trace again a journey often made.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A guidance turned the dumb revolving wheels<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And in the eager body of their speed<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The dim-masked hooded godheads rode who move<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Assigned to man immutably from his birth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Receivers of the inner and outer law,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

At once the agents of his spirit’s will<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

And witnesses and executors of his fate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInexorably faithful to their task,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey hold his nature’s sequence in their guard<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarrying the unbroken thread old lives have spun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAttendants on his destiny’s measured walk<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeading to joys he has won and pains he has called,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven in his casual steps they intervene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNothing we think or do is void or vain;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Each is an energy loosed and holds its course.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe shadowy keepers of our deathless past<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHave made our fate the child of our own acts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd from the furrows laboured by our will<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWe reap the fruit of our forgotten deeds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut since unseen the tree that bore this fruit<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd we live in a present born from an unknown past,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey seem but parts of a mechanic Force,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo a mechanic mind tied by earth’s laws;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Yet are they instruments of a Will supreme,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatched by a still all-seeing Eye above.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA prescient architect of Fate and Chance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho builds our lives on a foreseen design<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe meaning knows and consequence of each step<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd watches the inferior stumbling powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUpon her silent heights she was aware<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf a calm Presence throned above her brows<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 429<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\nWho saw the goal and chose each fateful curve;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It used the body for its pedestal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe eyes that wandered were its searchlight fires,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe hands that held the reins its living took;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

All was the working of an ancient plan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA way prepared by an unerring Guide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAcross wide noons and glowing afternoons,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe met with Nature and with human forms<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd listened to the voices of the world;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Driven from within she followed her long road,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMute in the luminous cavern of her heart,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike a bright cloud through the resplendent day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt first her path ran far through peopled tracts:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Admitted to the lion eye of States<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd theatres of the loud act of man,’<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Her carven chariot with its fretted wheels<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThreaded through clamorous marts and sentinel towers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPast figured gates and high dream-sculptured fronts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd gardens hung in the sapphire of the skies,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPillared assembly halls with armoured guards,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSmall fanes where one calm Image watched man’s life<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd temples hewn as if by exiled gods<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo imitate their lost eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOften from gilded dusk to argent dawn<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere jewel-lamps flickered on frescoed walls<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the stone lattice stared at moonlit boughs,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHalf-conscious of the tardy listening night<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDimly she glided between banks of sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt rest in the slumbering palaces of kings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHamlet and village saw the fate-van pass, <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nHomes of a life bent to the soil it ploughs<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor sustenance of its short and passing days<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 430<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\nThat, transient, keep their old repeated course<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnchanging in the circle of a sky<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhich alters not above our mortal toil.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAway from this thinking creature’s burdened hours<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo free and griefless spaces now she turned<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot yet perturbed by human joys and fears.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere was the childhood of primeval earth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere timeless musings large and glad and still,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMen had forborne as yet to fill with cares,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImperial acres of the eternal sower<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd wind-stirred grass-lands winking in the sun:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Or mid green musing of woods and rough-browed hills,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the grove’s murmurous bee-air humming wild<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr past the long lapsing voice of silver floods<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike a swift hope journeying among its dreams<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHastened the chariot of the golden bride.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of the world’s immense unhuman past<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTract-memories and ageless remnants came,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDomains of light enfeoffed to an antique calm<\/span><\/p>\n

\nListened to the unaccustomed sound of hooves<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd large immune entangled silences<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbsorbed her into emerald secrecy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd slow hushed wizard nets of faery bloom<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Environed with their coloured snare her wheels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe strong importunate feet of Time fell soft<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlong these lonely ways, his titan pace<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForgotten and his stark and ruinous rounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe inner ear that listens to solitude,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeaning self-rapt unboundedly could hear<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe rhythm of the intenser wordless Thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat gathers in the silence behind life,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the low sweet inarticulate voice of earth<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 431<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\nIn the great passion of her sun-kissed trance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAscended with its yearning undertone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAfar from the brute noise of clamorous needs<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe quieted all-seeking mind could feel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt rest from its blind outwardness of will,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe unwearied clasp of her mute patient love<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd know for a soul the mother of our forms. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThis spirit stumbling in the fields of sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis creature bruised in the mortar of the days<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCould find in her broad spaces of release.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot yet was a world all occupied by care.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe bosom of our mother kept for us still<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer austere regions and her musing depths,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer impersonal reaches lonely and inspired<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the mightinesses of her rapture haunts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMuse-lipped she nursed her symbol mysteries<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd guarded for her pure-eyed sacraments<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe valley-clefts between her breasts of joy,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer mountain-altars for the fires of dawn<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd nuptial beaches where the ocean couched<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the huge chanting of her prophet woods.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFields had she of her solitary mirth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPlains hushed and happy in the embrace of light,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlone with the cry of birds and hue of flowers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd wildernesses of wonder lit by her moons<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd grey seer-evenings kindling with the stars<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd dim movement in the night’s infinitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAugust, exulting in her Maker’s eye,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe felt her nearness to him in earth’s breast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nConversed still with a Light behind the veil,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill communed with Eternity beyond.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A few and fit inhabitants she called<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 432<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To share the glad communion of her peace,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The breadth, the summit were their natural home.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The strong king-sages from their labour done,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Freed from the warrior tension of their task,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Came to her serene sessions in these wilds;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

The strife was over, the respite lay in front.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHappy they lived with birds and beasts and flowers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd sunlight and the rustle of the leaves,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd heard the wild winds wandering in the night,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMused with the stars in their mute constant ranks,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd lodged in the mornings as in azure tents,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd with the glory of the noons were one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome deeper plunged; from life’s external clasp<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBeckoned into a fiery privacy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the soul’s unassailed star-white recess<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey sojourned with an ever-living Bliss;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A Voice profound in the ecstasy and the hush<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey heard, beheld an all-revealing Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll time-made difference they overcame;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The world was fibred with their own heart-strings;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Close-drawn to the heart that beats in every breast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey reached the one self in all through boundless love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAttuned to Silence and to the world-rhyme,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey loosened the knot of the imprisoning mind;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Achieved was the wide untroubled witness gaze,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnsealed was Nature’s great spiritual eye;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To the height of heights rose now their daily climb:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Truth leaned to them from her supernal realm;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Above them blazed eternity’s mystic suns.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Nameless the austere ascetics without home<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Abandoning speech and motion and desire,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Aloof from creatures sat absorbed, alone,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

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\nPage <\/font>\u2013 433<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Immaculate in tranquil heights of self<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

On concentration’s luminous voiceless peaks,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

World-naked hermits with their matted hair<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Immobile as the passionless great hills<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Around them grouped like thoughts of some vast mood<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Awaiting the Infinite’s behest to end.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The seers attuned to the universal Will,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Content in Him who smiles behind earth’s forms<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbode ungrieved by the insistent days.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbout them like green trees girdling a hill<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYoung grave disciples fashioned by their touch,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTrained to the simple act and conscious word,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGreatened within and grew to meet their heights.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFar-wandering seekers on the Eternal’s path<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrought to these quiet founts their spirit’s thirst<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd spent the treasure of a silent hour<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBathed in the purity of the mild gaze<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat, uninsistent, ruled them from its peace,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd by its influence found the ways of calm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Infants of the monarchy of the worlds,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe heroic leaders of a coming time,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKing-children nurtured in that spacious air<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike lions gambolling in sky and sun<\/span><\/p>\n

\nReceived half-consciously their godlike stamp:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Formed in the type of the high thoughts they sang<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They learned the wide magnificence of mood<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That makes us comrades of the cosmic urge,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

No longer chained to their small separate selves,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Plastic and firm beneath the eternal hand,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Met Nature with a bold and friendly clasp<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And served in her the Power that shapes her works.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

One-souled to all and free from narrowing bonds,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

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\nPage <\/font>\u2013 434<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Large like a continent of warm sunshine<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In wide equality’s impartial joy,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

These sages breathed for God’s delight in things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Assisting the slow entries of the gods,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Sowing in young minds immortal thoughts they lived,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Taught the great Truth to which man’s race must rise<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or opened the gates of freedom to a few,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Imparting to our struggling world the Light<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They breathed like spirits from Time’s
\ndull yoke released<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Comrades and vessels of the cosmic Force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Using a natural mastery like the sun’s:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Their speech, their silence was a help to earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA magic happiness flowed from their touch,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOneness was sovereign in that sylvan peace,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe wild beast joined in friendship with its prey,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Persuading the hatred and the strife to cease<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The love that flows from the one Mother’s breast<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Healed with their hearts the hard and wounded world.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Others escaped from the confines of thought<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To where Mind motionless sleeps waiting Light’s birth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And came back quivering with a nameless Force<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Drunk with a wine of lightning in their cells;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Intuitive knowledge leaping into speech,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHearing the subtle voice that clothes the heavens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarrying the splendour that has lit the suns,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey sang Infinity’s names and deathless powers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn metres that reflect the moving worlds,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSight’s sound-waves breaking from the soul’s great deeps.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome lost to the person and his strip of thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a motionless ocean of impersonal Power,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSat mighty, visioned with the Infinite’s Light,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr, comrades of the everlasting Will,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

\nSurveyed the plan of past and future Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome winged like birds out of the cosmic sea<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd vanished into a bright and featureless Vast:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Some silent watched the universal dance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr helped the world by world-indifference.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome watched no more merged in a lonely Self,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbsorbed in the trance from which no soul returns,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll the occult world-lines for ever closed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe chains of birth and person cast away:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Some uncompanioned reached the Ineffable.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

As floats a sunbeam through a shady place,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe golden virgin in her carven car<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame gliding among meditation’s seats.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOften in twilight mid returning troops<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf cattle thickening with their dust the shades<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen the loud day had slipped below the verge,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArriving in a peaceful hermit grove<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe rested drawing round her like a cloak<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts spirit of patient muse and potent prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr near to a lion river’s tawny mane<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd trees that worshipped on a praying shore,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA domed and templed air’s serene repose<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Beckoned to her hurrying wheels to stay their speed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the solemnity of a space that seemed<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA mind remembering ancient silences,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere to the heart great bygone voices called<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the large liberty of brooding seers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHad left the long impress of their soul’s scene<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAwake in candid dawn or darkness mooned,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo the still touch inclined the daughter of Flame<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDrank in hushed splendour between tranquil lids<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013
\n436<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nAnd felt the kinship of eternal calm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut mom broke in reminding her of her quest<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd from low rustic couch or mat she rose<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd went impelled on her unfinished way<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd followed the fateful orbit of her life<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike a desire that questions silent gods,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen passes starlike to some bright Beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThence to great solitary tracts she came,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere man was a passer-by towards human scenes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr sole in Nature’s vastness strove to live<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd called for help to ensouled invisible Powers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOverwhelmed by the immensity of his world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd unaware of his own infinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Earth multiplied to her a changing brow<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd called her with a far and nameless voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe mountains in their anchorite solitude,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe forests with their multitudinous chant<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDisclosed to her the masked divinity’s doors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn dreaming plains, an indolent expanse,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe death-bed of a pale enchanted eve<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnder the glamour of a sunken sky,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImpassive she lay as at an age’s end,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr crossed an eager pack of huddled hills<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLifting their heads to hunt a lairlike sky,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr travelled in a strange and empty land<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere desolate summits camped in a weird heaven,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMute sentinels beneath a drifting moon,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr wandered in some lone tremendous wood<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRinging for ever with the crickets’ cry,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr followed a long glistening serpent road<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThrough fields and pastures lapped in moveless light<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Or reached the wild beauty of a desert space<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 437<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nWhere never plough was driven nor herd had grazed<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd slumbered upon stripped and thirsty sands<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAmid the savage wild-beast Night’s appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill unaccomplished was the fateful quest;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Still she found not the one predestined face<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor which she sought amid the sons of men.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA grandiose silence wrapped the regal day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe months had fed the passion of the sun<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd now his burning breath assailed the soil.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe tiger heats prowled through the fainting earth;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

All was licked up as by a lolling tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe spring winds failed; the sky was set like bronze.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage <\/font>\u2013 438<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

  CANTO FOUR   THE QUEST   THE world-ways opened before Savitri. At first a strangeness of new brilliant scenes Peopled her mind and kept…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-savitri-1954","wpcat-78-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451","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=3451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}