{"id":504,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=504"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:26","slug":"10-book-2-canto-04-the-kingdoms-of-the-little-life-vol-28-savitri-volume-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/28-savitri-volume-28\/10-book-2-canto-04-the-kingdoms-of-the-little-life-vol-28-savitri-volume-28","title":{"rendered":"-10_Book 2 Canto 04 The Kingdoms of the Little Life.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n
\n

\nCanto Four<\/i> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe
\nKingdoms of the Little Life<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A quivering trepidant
\nuncertain world<\/p>\n

Born from that
\ndolorous meeting and eclipse<\/p>\n

Appeared in the
\nemptiness where her feet had trod,<\/p>\n

A quick obscurity, a
\nseeking stir.<\/p>\n

There was a writhing
\nof half-conscious force<\/p>\n

Hardly awakened from
\ninconscient sleep<\/p>\n

And tied to an
\ninstinct-driven Ignorance,<\/p>\n

To find itself and
\nfind its hold on things.<\/p>\n

Inheritor of poverty
\nand loss,<\/p>\n

Assailed by memories
\nthat fled when seized,<\/p>\n

Haunted by a
\nforgotten uplifting hope,<\/p>\n

It strove with a
\nblindness as of groping hands<\/p>\n

To fill the aching
\nand disastrous gap<\/p>\n

Between earth-pain
\nand the bliss from which Life fell.<\/p>\n

A world that ever
\nseeks for something missed,<\/p>\n

Hunting for a joy
\nthat earth has failed to keep.<\/p>\n

Too near to our gates
\nits unappeased unrest<\/p>\n

For peace to live on
\nthe inert solid globe:<\/p>\n

It has joined its
\nhunger to the hunger of earth,<\/p>\n

It has given the law
\nof craving to our lives,<\/p>\n

It has made our
\nspirit’s need a fathomless gulf.<\/p>\n

An Influence entered
\nmortal night and day,<\/p>\n

A shadow overcast the
\ntime-born race;<\/p>\n

In the troubled
\nstream where leaps a blind heart-pulse<\/p>\n

And the nerve-beat of
\nfeeling wakes in sense<\/p>\n

Dividing Matter’s
\nsleep from conscious Mind,<\/p>\n

There strayed a call
\nthat knew not why it came.<\/p>\n

A Power beyond
\nearth’s scope has touched the earth;<\/p>\n

The repose that might
\nhave been can be no more;<\/p>\n

A formless yearning
\npassions in man’s heart,<\/p>\n

A cry is in his blood
\nfor happier things: <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 132<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Else could he roam on
\na free sunlit soil<\/p>\n

With the childlike
\npain-forgetting mind of beasts<\/p>\n

Or live happy,
\nunmoved, like flowers and trees.<\/p>\n

The Might that came
\nupon the earth to bless<\/p>\n

Has stayed on earth
\nto suffer and aspire.<\/p>\n

The infant laugh that
\nrang through time is hushed:<\/p>\n

Man’s natural joy of
\nlife is overcast<\/p>\n

And sorrow is his
\nnurse of destiny.<\/p>\n

The animal’s
\nthoughtless joy is left behind,<\/p>\n

Care and reflection
\nburden his daily walk:<\/p>\n

He has risen to
\ngreatness and to discontent,<\/p>\n

He is awake to the
\nInvisible.<\/p>\n

Insatiate seeker, he
\nhas all to learn:<\/p>\n

He has exhausted now
\nlife’s surface acts,<\/p>\n

His being’s hidden
\nrealms remain to explore.<\/p>\n

He becomes a mind, he
\nbecomes a spirit and self;<\/p>\n

In his fragile
\ntenement he grows Nature’s lord.<\/p>\n

In him Matter wakes
\nfrom its long obscure trance,<\/p>\n

In him earth feels
\nthe Godhead drawing near.<\/p>\n

An eyeless Power that
\nsees no more its aim,<\/p>\n

A restless hungry
\nenergy of Will,<\/p>\n

Life cast her seed in
\nthe body’s indolent mould;<\/p>\n

It woke from happy
\ntorpor a blind Force<\/p>\n

Compelling it to
\nsense and seek and feel.<\/p>\n

In the enormous
\nlabour of the Void<\/p>\n

Perturbing with her
\ndreams the vast routine<\/p>\n

And dead roll of a
\nslumbering universe<\/p>\n

The mighty prisoner
\nstruggled for release.<\/p>\n

Alive with her
\nyearning woke the inert cell,<\/p>\n

In the heart she
\nkindled a fire of passion and need,<\/p>\n

Amid the deep calm of
\ninanimate things<\/p>\n

Arose her great voice
\nof toil and prayer and strife.<\/p>\n

A groping
\nconsciousness in a voiceless world,<\/p>\n

A guideless sense was
\ngiven her for her road;<\/p>\n

Thought was withheld
\nand nothing now she knew<\/p>\n

But all the unknown
\nwas hers to feel and clasp. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 133<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Obeying the push of
\nunborn things towards birth<\/p>\n

Out of her seal of
\ninsentient life she broke:<\/p>\n

In her substance of
\nunthinking mute soul-strength<\/p>\n

That cannot utter
\nwhat its depths divine,<\/p>\n

Awoke a blind
\nnecessity to know.<\/p>\n

The chain that bound
\nher she made her instrument;<\/p>\n

Instinct was hers,
\nthe chrysalis of Truth,<\/p>\n

And effort and growth
\nand striving nescience.<\/p>\n

Inflicting on the
\nbody desire and hope,<\/p>\n

Imposing on
\ninconscience consciousness<\/p>\n

She brought into
\nMatter’s dull tenacity<\/p>\n

Her anguished claim
\nto her lost sovereign right,<\/p>\n

Her tireless search,
\nher vexed uneasy heart,<\/p>\n

Her wandering unsure
\nsteps, her cry for change.<\/p>\n

Adorer of a joy
\nwithout a name,<\/p>\n

In her obscure
\ncathedral of delight<\/p>\n

To dim dwarf gods she
\noffers secret rites.<\/p>\n

But vain unending is
\nthe sacrifice,<\/p>\n

The priest an
\nignorant mage who only makes<\/p>\n

Futile mutations in
\nthe altar’s plan<\/p>\n

And casts blind hopes
\ninto a powerless flame.<\/p>\n

A burden of transient
\ngains weighs down her steps<\/p>\n

And hardly under that
\nload can she advance;<\/p>\n

But the hours cry to
\nher, she travels on<\/p>\n

Passing from thought
\nto thought, from want to want;<\/p>\n

Her greatest progress
\nis a deepened need.<\/p>\n

Matter dissatisfies,
\nshe turns to Mind;<\/p>\n

She conquers earth,
\nher field, then claims the heavens.<\/p>\n

Insensible, breaking
\nthe work she has done<\/p>\n

The stumbling ages
\nover her labour pass,<\/p>\n

And still no great
\ntransforming light came down<\/p>\n

And no revealing
\nrapture touched her fall.<\/p>\n

Only a glimmer
\nsometimes splits mind’s sky<\/p>\n

Justifying the
\nambiguous providence<\/p>\n

That makes of night a
\npath to unknown dawns<\/p>\n

Or a dark clue to
\nsome diviner state. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 134<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

In Nescience began
\nher mighty task,<\/p>\n

In Ignorance she
\npursues the unfinished work:<\/p>\n

For Knowledge gropes,
\nbut meets not Wisdom’s face.<\/p>\n

Ascending slowly with
\nunconscious steps,<\/p>\n

A foundling of the
\ngods she wanders here<\/p>\n

Like a child-soul
\nleft near the gates of Hell<\/p>\n

Fumbling through fog
\nin search of Paradise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this slow
\nascension he must follow her pace<\/p>\n

Even from her faint
\nand dim subconscious start:<\/p>\n

So only can earth’s
\nlast salvation come.<\/p>\n

For so only could he
\nknow the obscure cause<\/p>\n

Of all that holds us
\nback and baffles God<\/p>\n

In the jail-delivery
\nof the imprisoned soul.<\/p>\n

Along swift paths of
\nfall through dangerous gates<\/p>\n

He chanced into a
\ngrey obscurity<\/p>\n

Teeming with
\ninstincts from the mindless gulfs<\/p>\n

That pushed to wear a
\nform and win a place.<\/p>\n

Life here was
\nintimate with Death and Night<\/p>\n

And ate Death’s food
\nthat she might breathe awhile;<\/p>\n

She was their inmate
\nand adopted waif.<\/p>\n

Accepting
\nsubconscience, in dumb darkness’ reign<\/p>\n

A sojourner, she
\nhoped not any more.<\/p>\n

There far away from
\nTruth and luminous thought<\/p>\n

He saw the original
\nseat, the separate birth<\/p>\n

Of the dethroned,
\ndeformed and suffering Power.<\/p>\n

An unhappy face of
\nfalsity made true,<\/p>\n

A contradiction of
\nour divine birth,<\/p>\n

Indifferent to beauty
\nand to light,<\/p>\n

Parading she flaunted
\nher animal disgrace<\/p>\n

Unhelped by
\ncamouflage, brutal and bare,<\/p>\n

An authentic image
\nrecognised and signed<\/p>\n

Of her outcast force
\nexiled from heaven and hope,<\/p>\n

Fallen, glorying in
\nthe vileness of her state,<\/p>\n

The grovel of a
\nstrength once half divine,<\/p>\n

The graceless squalor
\nof her beast desires, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 135<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The staring visage of
\nher ignorance,<\/p>\n

The naked body of her
\npoverty.<\/p>\n

Here first she
\ncrawled out from her cabin of mud<\/p>\n

Where she had lain
\ninconscient, rigid, mute:<\/p>\n

Its narrowness and
\ntorpor held her still,<\/p>\n

A darkness clung to
\nher uneffaced by Light.<\/p>\n

There neared no touch
\nredeeming from above:<\/p>\n

The upward look was
\nalien to her sight,<\/p>\n

Forgotten the
\nfearless godhead of her walk;<\/p>\n

Renounced was the
\nglory and felicity,<\/p>\n

The adventure in the
\ndangerous fields of Time:<\/p>\n

Hardly she availed,
\nwallowing, to bear and live.<\/p>\n

 A wide unquiet mist
\nof seeking space,<\/p>\n

A rayless region
\nswallowed in vague swathes,<\/p>\n

That seemed, unnamed,
\nunbodied and unhoused,<\/p>\n

A swaddled visionless
\nand formless mind,<\/p>\n

Asked for a body to
\ntranslate its soul.<\/p>\n

Its prayer denied, it
\nfumbled after thought.<\/p>\n

As yet not powered to
\nthink, hardly to live,<\/p>\n

It opened into a
\nweird and pigmy world<\/p>\n

Where this unhappy
\nmagic had its source.<\/p>\n

On dim confines where
\nLife and Matter meet<\/p>\n

He wandered among
\nthings half-seen, half-guessed,<\/p>\n

Pursued by ungrasped
\nbeginnings and lost ends.<\/p>\n

There life was born
\nbut died before it could live.<\/p>\n

There was no solid
\nground, no constant drift;<\/p>\n

Only some flame of
\nmindless Will had power.<\/p>\n

Himself was dim to
\nhimself, half-felt, obscure,<\/p>\n

As if in a struggle
\nof the Void to be.<\/p>\n

In strange domains
\nwhere all was living sense<\/p>\n

But mastering thought
\nwas not nor cause nor rule,<\/p>\n

Only a crude
\nchild-heart cried for toys of bliss,<\/p>\n

Mind flickered, a
\ndisordered infant glow,<\/p>\n

And random shapeless
\nenergies drove towards form<\/p>\n

And took each
\nwisp-fire for a guiding sun.<\/p>\n

This blindfold force
\ncould place no thinking step; <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 136<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Asking for light she
\nfollowed darkness’ clue.<\/p>\n

An inconscient Power
\ngroped towards consciousness,<\/p>\n

Matter smitten by
\nMatter glimmered to sense,<\/p>\n

Blind contacts, slow
\nreactions beat out sparks<\/p>\n

Of instinct from a
\ncloaked subliminal bed,<\/p>\n

Sensations crowded,
\ndumb substitutes for thought,<\/p>\n

Perception answered
\nNature’s waking blows<\/p>\n

But still was a
\nmechanical response,<\/p>\n

A jerk, a leap, a
\nstart in Nature’s dream,<\/p>\n

And rude unchastened
\nimpulses jostling ran<\/p>\n

Heedless of every
\nmotion but their own<\/p>\n

And, darkling,
\nclashed with darker than themselves,<\/p>\n

Free in a world of
\nsettled anarchy.<\/p>\n

The need to exist,
\nthe instinct to survive<\/p>\n

Engrossed the tense
\nprecarious moment’s will<\/p>\n

And an unseeing
\ndesire felt out for food.<\/p>\n

The gusts of Nature
\nwere the only law,<\/p>\n

Force wrestled with
\nforce but no result remained:<\/p>\n

Only were achieved a
\nnescient grasp and drive<\/p>\n

And feelings and
\ninstincts knowing not their source,<\/p>\n

Sense-pleasures and
\nsense-pangs soon caught, soon lost,<\/p>\n

And the brute motion
\nof unthinking lives.<\/p>\n

It was a vain
\nunnecessary world<\/p>\n

Whose will to be
\nbrought poor and sad results<\/p>\n

And meaningless
\nsuffering and a grey unease.<\/p>\n

Nothing seemed worth
\nthe labour to become.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But judged not so his
\nspirit’s wakened eye.<\/p>\n

As shines a solitary
\nwitness star<\/p>\n

That burns apart,
\nLight’s lonely sentinel,<\/p>\n

In the drift and
\nteeming of a mindless Night,<\/p>\n

A single thinker in
\nan aimless world<\/p>\n

Awaiting some
\ntremendous dawn of God,<\/p>\n

He saw the purpose in
\nthe works of Time.<\/p>\n

Even in that
\naimlessness a work was done<\/p>\n

Pregnant with magic
\nwill and change divine. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 137<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The first writhings
\nof the cosmic serpent Force<\/p>\n

Uncoiled from the
\nmystic ring of Matter’s trance;<\/p>\n

It raised its head in
\nthe warm air of life.<\/p>\n

It could not cast off
\nyet Night’s stiffening sleep<\/p>\n

Or wear as yet mind’s
\nwonder-flecks and streaks,<\/p>\n

Put on its jewelled
\nhood the crown of soul<\/p>\n

Or stand erect in the
\nblaze of spirit’s sun.<\/p>\n

As yet were only seen
\nfoulness and force,<\/p>\n

The secret crawl of
\nconsciousness to light<\/p>\n

Through a fertile
\nslime of lust and battening sense,<\/p>\n

Beneath the body’s
\ncrust of thickened self<\/p>\n

A tardy fervent
\nworking in the dark,<\/p>\n

The turbid yeast of
\nNature’s passionate change,<\/p>\n

Ferment of the soul’s
\ncreation out of mire.<\/p>\n

A heavenly process
\ndonned this grey disguise,<\/p>\n

A fallen ignorance in
\nits covert night<\/p>\n

Laboured to achieve
\nits dumb unseemly work,<\/p>\n

A camouflage of the
\nInconscient’s need<\/p>\n

To release the glory
\nof God in Nature’s mud.<\/p>\n

His sight, spiritual
\nin embodying orbs,<\/p>\n

Could pierce through
\nthe grey phosphorescent haze<\/p>\n

And scan the secrets
\nof the shifting flux<\/p>\n

That animates these
\nmute and solid cells<\/p>\n

And leads the thought
\nand longing of the flesh<\/p>\n

And the keen lust and
\nhunger of its will.<\/p>\n

This too he tracked
\nalong its hidden stream<\/p>\n

And traced its acts
\nto a miraculous fount.<\/p>\n

A mystic Presence
\nnone can probe nor rule,<\/p>\n

Creator of this game
\nof ray and shade<\/p>\n

In this sweet and
\nbitter paradoxical life,<\/p>\n

Asks from the body
\nthe soul’s intimacies<\/p>\n

And by the swift
\nvibration of a nerve<\/p>\n

Links its mechanic
\nthrobs to light and love.<\/p>\n

It summons the
\nspirit’s sleeping memories<\/p>\n

Up from subconscient
\ndepths beneath Time’s foam;<\/p>\n

Oblivious of their
\nflame of happy truth, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 138<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Arriving with heavy
\neyes that hardly see,<\/p>\n

They come disguised
\nas feelings and desires,<\/p>\n

Like weeds upon the
\nsurface float awhile<\/p>\n

And rise and sink on
\na somnambulist tide.<\/p>\n

Impure, degraded
\nthough her motions are,<\/p>\n

Always a heaven-truth
\nbroods in life’s deeps;<\/p>\n

In our obscurest
\nmembers burns that fire.<\/p>\n

A touch of God’s
\nrapture in creation’s acts,<\/p>\n

A lost remembrance of
\nfelicity<\/p>\n

Lurks still in the
\ndumb roots of death and birth,<\/p>\n

The world’s senseless
\nbeauty mirrors God’s delight.<\/p>\n

That rapture’s smile
\nis secret everywhere;<\/p>\n

It flows in the
\nwind’s breath, in the tree’s sap,<\/p>\n

Its hued magnificence
\nblooms in leaves and flowers.<\/p>\n

When life broke
\nthrough its half-drowse in the plant<\/p>\n

That feels and
\nsuffers but cannot move or cry,<\/p>\n

In beast and in
\nwinged bird and thinking man<\/p>\n

It made of the
\nheart’s rhythm its music’s beat;<\/p>\n

It forced the
\nunconscious tissues to awake<\/p>\n

And ask for happiness
\nand earn the pang<\/p>\n

And thrill with
\npleasure and laughter of brief delight,<\/p>\n

And quiver with pain
\nand crave for ecstasy.<\/p>\n

Imperative,
\nvoiceless, ill-understood,<\/p>\n

Too far from light,
\ntoo close to being’s core,<\/p>\n

Born strangely in
\nTime from the eternal Bliss,<\/p>\n

It presses on heart’s
\ncore and vibrant nerve;<\/p>\n

Its sharp
\nself-seeking tears our consciousness;<\/p>\n

Our pain and pleasure
\nhave that sting for cause;<\/p>\n

Instinct with it, but
\nblind to its true joy<\/p>\n

The soul’s desire
\nleaps out towards passing things.<\/p>\n

All Nature’s longing
\ndrive none can resist,<\/p>\n

Comes surging through
\nthe blood and quickened sense;<\/p>\n

An ecstasy of the
\ninfinite is her cause.<\/p>\n

It turns in us to
\nfinite loves and lusts,<\/p>\n

The will to conquer
\nand have, to seize and keep,<\/p>\n

To enlarge life’s
\nroom and scope and pleasure’s range, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 139<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

To battle and
\novercome and make one’s own,<\/p>\n

The hope to mix one’s
\njoy with others’ joy,<\/p>\n

A yearning to possess
\nand be possessed,<\/p>\n

To enjoy and be
\nenjoyed, to feel, to live.<\/p>\n

Here was its early
\nbrief attempt to be,<\/p>\n

Its rapid end of
\nmomentary delight<\/p>\n

Whose stamp of
\nfailure haunts all ignorant life.<\/p>\n

Inflicting still its
\nhabit on the cells<\/p>\n

The phantom of a dark
\nand evil start<\/p>\n

Ghostlike pursues all
\nthat we dream and do.<\/p>\n

Although on earth are
\nfirm established lives,<\/p>\n

A working of habit or
\na sense of law,<\/p>\n

A steady repetition
\nin the flux,<\/p>\n

Yet are its roots of
\nwill ever the same;<\/p>\n

These passions are
\nthe stuff of which we are made.<\/p>\n

This was the first
\ncry of the awaking world.<\/p>\n

It clings around us
\nstill and clamps the god.<\/p>\n

Even when reason is
\nborn and soul takes form,<\/p>\n

In beast and reptile
\nand in thinking man<\/p>\n

It lasts and is the
\nfount of all their life.<\/p>\n

This too was needed
\nthat breath and living might be.<\/p>\n

The spirit in a
\nfinite ignorant world<\/p>\n

Must rescue so its
\nprisoned consciousness<\/p>\n

Forced out in little
\njets at quivering points<\/p>\n

From the
\nInconscient’s sealed infinitude.<\/p>\n

Then slowly it
\ngathers mass, looks up at Light.<\/p>\n

This Nature lives
\ntied to her origin,<\/p>\n

A clutch of nether
\nforce is on her still;<\/p>\n

Out of unconscious
\ndepths her instincts leap;<\/p>\n

A neighbour is her
\nlife to insentient Nought.<\/p>\n

Under this law an
\nignorant world was made.<\/p>\n

    In the enigma of the
\ndarkened Vasts,<\/p>\n

In the passion and
\nself-loss of the Infinite<\/p>\n

When all was plunged
\nin the negating Void,<\/p>\n

Non-Being’s night
\ncould never have been saved<\/p>\n

If Being had not
\nplunged into the dark <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 140<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Carrying with it its
\ntriple mystic cross.<\/p>\n

Invoking in
\nworld-time the timeless truth,<\/p>\n

Bliss changed to
\nsorrow, knowledge made ignorant,<\/p>\n

God’s force turned
\ninto a child’s helplessness<\/p>\n

Can bring down heaven
\nby their sacrifice.<\/p>\n

A contradiction
\nfounds the base of life:<\/p>\n

The eternal, the
\ndivine Reality<\/p>\n

Has faced itself with
\nits own contraries;<\/p>\n

Being became the Void
\nand Conscious-Force<\/p>\n

Nescience and walk of
\na blind Energy<\/p>\n

And Ecstasy took the
\nfigure of world-pain.<\/p>\n

In a mysterious
\ndispensation’s law<\/p>\n

A Wisdom that
\nprepares its far-off ends<\/p>\n

Planned so to start
\nher slow aeonic game.<\/p>\n

A blindfold search
\nand wrestle and fumbling clasp<\/p>\n

Of a half-seen Nature
\nand a hidden Soul,<\/p>\n

A game of
\nhide and seek in twilit rooms,<\/p>\n

A play of love and
\nhate and fear and hope<\/p>\n

Continues in the
\nnursery of mind<\/p>\n

Its hard and heavy
\nromp of self-born twins.<\/p>\n

At last the
\nstruggling Energy can emerge<\/p>\n

And meet the
\nvoiceless Being in wider fields;<\/p>\n

Then can they see and
\nspeak and, breast to breast,<\/p>\n

In a larger
\nconsciousness, a clearer light,<\/p>\n

The Two embrace and
\nstrive and each know each<\/p>\n

Regarding closer now
\nthe playmate’s face.<\/p>\n

Even in these
\nformless coilings he could feel<\/p>\n

Matter’s response to
\nan infant stir of soul.<\/p>\n

In Nature he saw the
\nmighty Spirit concealed,<\/p>\n

Watched the weak
\nbirth of a tremendous Force,<\/p>\n

Pursued the riddle of
\nGodhead’s tentative pace,<\/p>\n

Heard the faint
\nrhythms of a great unborn Muse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then came a fierier
\nbreath of waking life,<\/p>\n

And there arose from
\nthe dim gulf of things<\/p>\n

The strange creations
\nof a thinking sense, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 141<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Existences half-real
\nand half-dream.<\/p>\n

A life was there that
\nhoped not to survive:<\/p>\n

Beings were born who
\nperished without trace,<\/p>\n

Events that were a
\nformless drama’s limbs<\/p>\n

And actions driven by
\na blind creature will.<\/p>\n

A seeking Power found
\nout its road to form,<\/p>\n

Patterns were built
\nof love and joy and pain<\/p>\n

And symbol figures
\nfor the moods of Life.<\/p>\n

An insect hedonism
\nfluttered and crawled<\/p>\n

And basked in a
\nsunlit Nature’s surface thrills,<\/p>\n

And dragon raptures,
\npython agonies<\/p>\n

Crawled in the marsh
\nand mire and licked the sun.<\/p>\n

Huge armoured
\nstrengths shook the frail quaking ground,<\/p>\n

Great puissant
\ncreatures with a dwarfish brain,<\/p>\n

And pigmy tribes
\nimposed their small life-drift.<\/p>\n

In a dwarf model of
\nhumanity<\/p>\n

Nature now launched
\nthe extreme experience<\/p>\n

And master-point of
\nher design’s caprice,<\/p>\n

Luminous result of
\nher half-conscious climb<\/p>\n

On rungs twixt her
\nsublimities and grotesques<\/p>\n

To massive from
\ninfinitesimal shapes,<\/p>\n

To a subtle balancing
\nof body and soul,<\/p>\n

To an order of
\nintelligent littleness.<\/p>\n

Around him in the
\nmoment-beats of Time<\/p>\n

The kingdom of the
\nanimal self arose,<\/p>\n

Where deed is all and
\nmind is still half-born<\/p>\n

And the heart obeys a
\ndumb unseen control.<\/p>\n

The Force that works
\nby the light of Ignorance,<\/p>\n

Her animal experiment
\nbegan,<\/p>\n

Crowding with
\nconscious creatures her world-scheme;<\/p>\n

But to the outward
\nonly were they alive,<\/p>\n

Only they replied to
\ntouches and surfaces<\/p>\n

And to the prick of
\nneed that drove their lives.<\/p>\n

A body that knew not
\nits own soul within,<\/p>\n

There lived and
\nlonged, had wrath and joy and grief;<\/p>\n

A mind was there that
\nmet the objective world <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 142<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

As if a stranger or
\nenemy at its door:<\/p>\n

Its thoughts were
\nkneaded by the shocks of sense;<\/p>\n

It captured not the
\nspirit in the form,<\/p>\n

It entered not the
\nheart of what it saw;<\/p>\n

It looked not for the
\npower behind the act,<\/p>\n

It studied not the
\nhidden motive in things<\/p>\n

Nor strove to find
\nthe meaning of it all.<\/p>\n

Beings were there who
\nwore a human form;<\/p>\n

Absorbed they lived
\nin the passion of the scene,<\/p>\n

But knew not who they
\nwere or why they lived:<\/p>\n

Life had for them no
\naim save Nature’s joy<\/p>\n

And the stimulus and
\ndelight of outer things;<\/p>\n

They worked for the
\nbody’s wants, they craved no more.<\/p>\n

Content to breathe,
\nto feel, to sense, to act,<\/p>\n

Identified with the
\nspirit’s outward shell.<\/p>\n

The veiled spectator
\nwatching from their depths<\/p>\n

Fixed not his inward
\neye upon himself<\/p>\n

Nor turned to find
\nthe author of the plot,<\/p>\n

He saw the drama only
\nand the stage.<\/p>\n

There was no brooding
\nstress of deeper sense,<\/p>\n

The burden of
\nreflection was not borne:<\/p>\n

Mind looked on Nature
\nwith unknowing eyes,<\/p>\n

Adored her boons and
\nfeared her monstrous strokes.<\/p>\n

It pondered not on
\nthe magic of her laws,<\/p>\n

It thirsted not for
\nthe secret wells of Truth,<\/p>\n

But made a register
\nof crowding facts<\/p>\n

And strung sensations
\non a vivid thread:<\/p>\n

It hunted and it fled
\nand sniffed the winds,<\/p>\n

Or slothed inert in
\nsunshine and soft air:<\/p>\n

It sought the
\nengrossing contacts of the world,<\/p>\n

But only to feed the
\nsurface sense with bliss.<\/p>\n

These felt life’s
\nquiver in the outward touch,<\/p>\n

They could not feel
\nbehind the touch the soul.<\/p>\n

To guard their form
\nof self from Nature’s harm,<\/p>\n

To enjoy and to
\nsurvive was all their care.<\/p>\n

The narrow horizon of
\ntheir days was filled <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 143<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

With things and
\ncreatures that could help and hurt:<\/p>\n

The world’s values
\nhung upon their little self.<\/p>\n

Isolated, cramped in
\nthe vast unknown,<\/p>\n

To save their small
\nlives from surrounding Death<\/p>\n

They made a tiny
\ncircle of defence<\/p>\n

Against the siege of
\nthe huge universe:<\/p>\n

They preyed upon the
\nworld and were its prey,<\/p>\n

But never dreamed to
\nconquer and be free.<\/p>\n

Obeying the
\nWorld-Power’s hints and firm taboos<\/p>\n

A scanty part they
\ndrew from her rich store;<\/p>\n

There was no
\nconscious code and no life-plan:<\/p>\n

The patterns of
\nthinking of a little group<\/p>\n

Fixed a traditional
\nbehaviour’s law.<\/p>\n

Ignorant of soul save
\nas a wraith within,<\/p>\n

Tied to a mechanism
\nof unchanging lives<\/p>\n

And to a dull usual
\nsense and feeling’s beat,<\/p>\n

They turned in
\ngrooves of animal desire.<\/p>\n

In walls of stone
\nfenced round they worked and warred,<\/p>\n

Did by a banded
\nselfishness a small good<\/p>\n

Or wrought a dreadful
\nwrong and cruel pain<\/p>\n

On sentient lives and
\nthought they did no ill.<\/p>\n

Ardent from the sack
\nof happy peaceful homes<\/p>\n

And gorged with
\nslaughter, plunder, rape and fire,<\/p>\n

They made of human
\nselves their helpless prey,<\/p>\n

A drove of captives
\nled to lifelong woe<\/p>\n

Or torture a
\nspectacle made and holiday,<\/p>\n

Mocking or thrilled
\nby their torn victim’s pangs;<\/p>\n

Admiring themselves
\nas titans and as gods<\/p>\n

Proudly they sang
\ntheir high and glorious deeds<\/p>\n

And praised their
\nvictory and their splendid force.<\/p>\n

An animal in the
\ninstinctive herd<\/p>\n

Pushed by life
\nimpulses, forced by common needs,<\/p>\n

Each in his own kind
\nsaw his ego’s glass;<\/p>\n

All served the aim
\nand action of the pack.<\/p>\n

Those like himself,
\nby blood or custom kin,<\/p>\n

To him were parts of
\nhis life, his adjunct selves, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 144<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

His personal nebula’s
\nconstituent stars,<\/p>\n

Satellite companions
\nof his solar I.<\/p>\n

A master of his
\nlife’s environment,<\/p>\n

A leader of a huddled
\nhuman mass<\/p>\n

Herding for safety on
\na dangerous earth<\/p>\n

He gathered them
\nround him as if minor Powers<\/p>\n

To make a common
\nfront against the world,<\/p>\n

Or, weak and sole on
\nan indifferent earth,<\/p>\n

As a fortress for his
\nundefended heart,<\/p>\n

Or else to heal his
\nbody’s loneliness.<\/p>\n

In others than his
\nkind he sensed a foe,<\/p>\n

An alien unlike force
\nto shun and fear,<\/p>\n

A stranger and
\nadversary to hate and slay.<\/p>\n

Or he lived as lives
\nthe solitary brute;<\/p>\n

At war with all he
\nbore his single fate.<\/p>\n

Absorbed in the
\npresent act, the fleeting days,<\/p>\n

None thought to look
\nbeyond the hour’s gains,<\/p>\n

Or dreamed to make
\nthis earth a fairer world,<\/p>\n

Or felt some touch
\ndivine surprise his heart.<\/p>\n

The gladness that the
\nfugitive moment gave,<\/p>\n

The desire grasped,
\nthe bliss, the experience won,<\/p>\n

Movement and speed
\nand strength were joy enough<\/p>\n

And bodily longings
\nshared and quarrel and play,<\/p>\n

And tears and
\nlaughter and the need called love.<\/p>\n

In war and clasp
\nthese life-wants joined the All-Life,<\/p>\n

Wrestlings of a
\ndivided unity<\/p>\n

Inflicting mutual
\ngrief and happiness<\/p>\n

In ignorance of the
\nSelf for ever one.<\/p>\n

Arming its creatures
\nwith delight and hope<\/p>\n

A half-awakened
\nNescience struggled there<\/p>\n

To know by sight and
\ntouch the outside of things.<\/p>\n

Instinct was formed;
\nin memory’s crowded sleep<\/p>\n

The past lived on as
\nin a bottomless sea:<\/p>\n

Inverting into
\nhalf-thought the quickened sense<\/p>\n

She felt around for
\ntruth with fumbling hands,<\/p>\n

Clutched to her the
\nlittle she could reach and seize <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 145<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

And put aside in her
\nsubconscient cave.<\/p>\n

So must the dim being
\ngrow in light and force<\/p>\n

And rise to his
\nhigher destiny at last,<\/p>\n

Look up to God and
\nround at the universe,<\/p>\n

And learn by failure
\nand progress by fall<\/p>\n

And battle with
\nenvironment and doom,<\/p>\n

By suffering discover
\nhis deep soul<\/p>\n

And by possession
\ngrow to his own vasts.<\/p>\n

Half-way she stopped
\nand found her faith no more.<\/p>\n

Still nothing was
\nachieved but to begin,<\/p>\n

Yet finished seemed
\nthe circle of her force,<\/font><\/p>\n

Only she had beaten
\nout sparks of ignorance,<\/p>\n

Only the life could
\nthink and not the mind,<\/p>\n

Only the sense could
\nfeel and not the soul,<\/p>\n

Only was lit some
\nheat of the flame of Life,<\/p>\n

Some joy to be, some
\nrapturous leaps of sense.<\/p>\n

All was an impetus of
\nhalf-conscious Force,<\/p>\n

A spirit sprawling
\ndrowned in dense life-foam,<\/p>\n

A vague self grasping
\nat the shape of things.<\/p>\n

Behind all moved
\nseeking for vessels to hold<\/p>\n

A first raw vintage
\nof the grapes of God,<\/p>\n

On earth’s mud a
\nspilth of the supernal Bliss,<\/p>\n

Intoxicating the
\nstupefied soul and mind<\/p>\n

A heady wine of
\nrapture dark and crude,<\/p>\n

Dim, uncast yet into
\nspiritual form,<\/p>\n

Obscure inhabitant of
\nthe world’s blind core,<\/p>\n

An unborn godhead’s
\nwill, a mute desire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A third creation now
\nrevealed its face.<\/p>\n

A mould of body’s
\nearly mind was made.<\/p>\n

A glint of light
\nkindled the obscure World-Force;<\/p>\n

It dowered a driven
\nworld with the seeing Idea<\/p>\n

And armed the act
\nwith Thought’s dynamic point:<\/p>\n

A small thinking
\nbeing watched the works of Time.<\/p>\n

A difficult evolution
\nfrom below<\/p>\n

Called a masked
\nintervention from above; <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 146<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Else this great,
\nblind inconscient universe<\/p>\n

Could never have
\ndisclosed its hidden mind,<\/p>\n

Or even in blinkers
\nworked in beast and man<\/p>\n

The Intelligence that
\ndevised the cosmic scheme.<\/p>\n

At first he saw a dim
\nobscure mind-power<\/p>\n

Moving concealed by
\nMatter and dumb life.<\/p>\n

A current thin, it
\nstreamed in life’s vast flow<\/p>\n

Tossing and drifting
\nunder a drifting sky<\/p>\n

Amid the surge and
\nglimmering tremendous wash,<\/p>\n

Released in splash of
\nsense and feeling’s waves.<\/p>\n

In the deep midst of
\nan unconscious world<\/p>\n

Its huddled waves and
\nfoam of consciousness ran<\/p>\n

Pressing and eddying
\nthrough a narrow strait,<\/p>\n

Carrying experience
\nin its crowded pace.<\/p>\n

It flowed emerging
\ninto upper light<\/p>\n

From the deep pool of
\nits subliminal birth<\/p>\n

To reach some high
\nexistence still unknown.<\/p>\n

There was no thinking
\nself, aim there was none:<\/p>\n

All was unrecognised
\nstress and seekings vague.<\/p>\n

Only to the unstable
\nsurface rose<\/p>\n

Sensations, stabs and
\nedges of desire<\/p>\n

And passion’s leaps
\nand brief emotion’s cries,<\/p>\n

A casual colloquy of
\nflesh with flesh,<\/p>\n

A murmur of heart to
\nlonging wordless heart,<\/p>\n

Glimmerings of
\nknowledge with no shape of thought<\/p>\n

And jets of
\nsubconscious will or hunger’s pulls.<\/p>\n

All was dim sparkle
\non a foaming top:<\/p>\n

It whirled around a
\ndrifting shadow-self<\/p>\n

In an inconscient
\nflood of Force in Time.<\/p>\n

Then came the
\npressure of a seeing Power<\/p>\n

That drew all into a
\ndancing turbid mass<\/p>\n

Circling around a
\nsingle luminous point,<\/p>\n

Centre of reference
\nin a conscious field,<\/p>\n

Figure of a unitary
\nLight within.<\/p>\n

It lit the impulse of
\nthe half-sentient flood,<\/p>\n

Even an illusion gave
\nof fixity <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 147<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

As if a sea could
\nserve as a firm soil.<\/p>\n

That strange
\nobserving Power imposed its sight.<\/p>\n

It forced on flux a
\nlimit and a shape,<\/p>\n

It gave its stream a
\nlower narrow bank,<\/p>\n

Drew lines to snare
\nthe spirit’s formlessness.<\/p>\n

It fashioned the
\nlife-mind of bird and beast,<\/p>\n

The answer of the
\nreptile and the fish,<\/p>\n

The primitive pattern
\nof the thoughts of man.<\/p>\n

A finite movement of
\nthe Infinite<\/p>\n

Came winging its way
\nthrough a wide air of Time;<\/p>\n

A march of Knowledge
\nmoved in Nescience<\/p>\n

And guarded in the
\nform a separate soul.<\/p>\n

Its right to be
\nimmortal it reserved,<\/p>\n

But built a wall
\nagainst the siege of death<\/p>\n

And threw a hook to
\nclutch eternity.<\/p>\n

A thinking entity
\nappeared in Space.<\/p>\n

A little ordered
\nworld broke into view<\/p>\n

Where being had
\nprison-room for act and sight,<\/p>\n

A floor to walk, a
\nclear but scanty range.<\/p>\n

An
\ninstrument-personality was born,<\/p>\n

And a restricted
\nclamped intelligence<\/p>\n

Consented to restrain
\nin narrow bounds<\/p>\n

Its seeking; it tied
\nthe thought to visible things,<\/p>\n

Prohibiting the
\nadventure of the Unseen<\/p>\n

And the soul’s tread
\nthrough unknown infinities.<\/p>\n

A reflex reason,
\nNature-habit’s glass<\/p>\n

Illumined life to
\nknow and fix its field,<\/p>\n

Accepting a dangerous
\nignorant brevity<\/p>\n

And the inconclusive
\npurpose of its walk,<\/p>\n

And profit by the
\nhour’s precarious chance<\/p>\n

In the allotted
\nboundaries of its fate.<\/p>\n

A little joy and
\nknowledge satisfied<\/p>\n

This little being
\ntied into a knot<\/p>\n

And hung on a bulge
\nof its environment,<\/p>\n

A little curve cut
\noff in measureless Space,<\/p>\n

A little span of life
\nin all vast Time. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 148<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

A thought was there
\nthat planned, a will that strove,<\/p>\n

But for small aims
\nwithin a narrow scope,<\/p>\n

Wasting unmeasured
\ntoil on transient things.<\/p>\n

It knew itself a
\ncreature of the mud;<\/p>\n

It asked no larger
\nlaw, no loftier aim;<\/p>\n

It had no inward
\nlook, no upward gaze.<\/p>\n

A backward scholar on
\nlogic’s rickety bench<\/p>\n

Indoctrinated by the
\nerring sense,<\/p>\n

It took appearance
\nfor the face of God,<\/p>\n

For casual lights the
\nmarching of the suns,<\/p>\n

For heaven a starry
\nstrip of doubtful blue;<\/p>\n

Aspects of being
\nfeigned to be the whole.<\/p>\n

There was a voice of
\nbusy interchange,<\/p>\n

A market-place of
\ntrivial thoughts and acts:<\/p>\n

A life soon spent, a
\nmind the body’s slave<\/p>\n

Here seemed the
\nbrilliant crown of Nature’s works,<\/p>\n

And tiny egos took
\nthe world as means<\/p>\n

To sate awhile dwarf
\nlusts and brief desires,<\/p>\n

In a death-closed
\npassage saw life’s start and end<\/p>\n

As though a blind
\nalley were creation’s sign,<\/p>\n

As if for this the
\nsoul had coveted birth<\/p>\n

In the wonderland of
\na self-creating world<\/p>\n

And the opportunities
\nof cosmic Space.<\/p>\n

This creature
\npassionate only to survive,<\/p>\n

Fettered to puny
\nthoughts with no wide range<\/p>\n

And to the body’s
\nneeds and pangs and joys,<\/p>\n

This fire growing by
\nits fuel’s death,<\/p>\n

Increased by what it
\nseized and made its own:<\/p>\n

It gathered and grew
\nand gave itself to none.<\/p>\n

Only it hoped for
\ngreatness in its den<\/p>\n

And pleasure and
\nvictory in small fields of power<\/p>\n

And conquest of
\nlife-room for self and kin,<\/p>\n

An animal limited by
\nits feeding-space.<\/p>\n

It knew not the
\nImmortal in its house,<\/p>\n

It had no greater
\ndeeper cause to live.<\/p>\n

In limits only it was
\npowerful; <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 149<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Acute to capture
\ntruth for outward use,<\/p>\n

Its knowledge was the
\nbody’s instrument;<\/p>\n

Absorbed in the
\nlittle works of its prison-house<\/p>\n

It turned around the
\nsame unchanging points<\/p>\n

In the same circle of
\ninterest and desire,<\/p>\n

But thought itself
\nthe master of its jail.<\/p>\n

Although for action,
\nnot for wisdom made,<\/p>\n

Thought was its
\napex or its gutter’s rim:<\/p>\n

It saw an image of
\nthe external world<\/p>\n

And saw its surface
\nself, but knew no more.<\/p>\n

Out of a slow
\nconfused embroiled self-search<\/p>\n

Mind grew to a
\nclarity cut out, precise,<\/p>\n

A gleam enclosed in a
\nstone ignorance.<\/p>\n

In this bound
\nthinking’s narrow leadership<\/p>\n

Tied to the soil,
\ninspired by common things,<\/p>\n

Attached to a
\nconfined familiar world,<\/p>\n

Amid the multitude of
\nher motived plots,<\/p>\n

Her changing actors
\nand her million masks,<\/p>\n

Life was a play
\nmonotonously the same.<\/p>\n

There were no vast
\nperspectives of the spirit,<\/p>\n

No swift invasions of
\nunknown delight,<\/p>\n

No golden distances
\nof wide release.<\/p>\n

This petty state
\nresembled our human days<\/p>\n

But fixed to eternity
\nof changeless type,<\/p>\n

A moment’s movement
\ndoomed to last through Time.<\/p>\n

Existence bridge-like
\nspanned the inconscient gulfs,<\/p>\n

A half-illumined
\nbuilding in a mist<\/p>\n

Which from a void of
\nForm arose to sight<\/p>\n

And jutted out into a
\nvoid of Soul.<\/p>\n

A little light in a
\ngreat darkness born,<\/p>\n

Life knew not where
\nit went nor whence it came.<\/p>\n

Around all floated
\nstill the nescient haze.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nEnd of Canto Four <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 150<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

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

  Canto Four    The Kingdoms of the Little Life    A quivering trepidant uncertain world Born from that dolorous meeting and eclipse Appeared in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-28-savitri-volume-28","wpcat-10-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","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=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}