{"id":506,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=506"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:27","slug":"14-book-2-canto-08-the-world-of-falsehood-the-mothe-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\/14-book-2-canto-08-the-world-of-falsehood-the-mothe-vol-28-savitri-volume-28","title":{"rendered":"-14_Book 2 Canto 08 The World of Falsehood the Mothe.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td width=\"24%\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"60%\">\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">\n<i>Canto Eight<\/i>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">\n<span><font size=\"4\">The World of<br \/>\nFalsehood, the Mother of Evil<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">\n<span><font size=\"4\">and the Sons of<br \/>\nDarkness<\/font><\/span><font size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then could he see the hidden heart of Night:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The labour of its stark unconsciousness<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Revealed the endless terrible Inane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A spiritless blank Infinity was there;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A Nature that denied the eternal Truth<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In the vain braggart freedom of its thought<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hoped to abolish God and reign alone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There was no sovereign Guest, no witness Light;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Unhelped it would create its own bleak world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its large blind eyes looked out on demon acts,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its deaf ears heard the untruth its dumb lips spoke;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its huge misguided fancy took vast shapes,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its mindless sentience quivered with fierce conceits;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Engendering a brute principle of life<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Evil and pain begot a monstrous soul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The Anarchs of the formless depths arose,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Great Titan beings and demoniac powers,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">World-egos racked with lust and thought and will,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Vast minds and lives without a spirit within:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Impatient architects of error&#8217;s house,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Leaders of the cosmic ignorance and unrest<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And sponsors of sorrow and mortality<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Embodied the dark Ideas of the Abyss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A shadow substance into emptiness came,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Dim forms were born in the unthinking Void<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And eddies met and made an adverse Space<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In whose black folds Being imagined Hell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">His eyes piercing the triple-plated gloom<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Identified their sight with its blind stare:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Accustomed to the unnatural dark, they saw&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 220<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Unreality made real and conscious Night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A violent, fierce and formidable world,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An ancient womb of huge calamitous dreams,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Coiled like a larva in the obscurity<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That keeps it from the spear-points of Heaven&#8217;s stars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It was the gate of a false Infinite,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An eternity of disastrous absolutes,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An immense negation of spiritual things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">All once self-luminous in the spirit&#8217;s sphere<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Turned now into their own dark contraries:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Being collapsed into a pointless void<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That yet was a zero parent of the worlds;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Inconscience swallowing up the cosmic Mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Produced a universe from its lethal sleep;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Bliss into black coma fallen, insensible,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Coiled back to itself and God&#8217;s eternal joy<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Through a false poignant figure of grief and pain<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Still dolorously nailed upon a cross<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Fixed in the soil of a dumb insentient world<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Where birth was a pang and death an agony,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Lest all too soon should change again to bliss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Thought sat, a priestess of Perversity,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">On her black tripod of the triune Snake<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Reading by opposite signs the eternal script,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A sorceress reversing<br \/>\nLife&#8217;s God-frame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In darkling aisles with evil eyes for lamps<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And fatal voices chanting from the apse,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In strange infernal dim basilicas<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Intoning the magic of the unholy Word,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The ominous profound Initiate<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Performed the ritual of her Mysteries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There suffering was Nature&#8217;s daily food<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Alluring to the anguished heart and flesh,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And torture was the formula of delight,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Pain mimicked the celestial ecstasy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There Good, a faithless gardener of God,&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 221<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Watered with virtue the world&#8217;s upas-tree<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And, careful of the outward word and act,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Engrafted his hypocrite blooms on native ill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">All high things served their nether opposite:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The forms of Gods sustained a demon cult;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Heaven&#8217;s face became a mask and snare of Hell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There in the heart of vain phenomenon,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In an enormous action&#8217;s writhen core<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He saw a shape illimitable and vague<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Sitting on Death who swallows all things born.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A chill fixed face with dire and motionless eyes,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Her dreadful trident in her shadowy hand<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Outstretched, she pierced all creatures with one fate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;text-indent:25px;line-height:150%\">When nothing was save Matter without soul<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And a spiritless hollow was the heart of Time,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then Life first touched the insensible Abyss;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Awaking the stark Void to hope and grief<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Her pallid beam smote the unfathomed Night<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In which God hid himself from his own view.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In all things she sought their slumbering mystic truth,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The unspoken Word that inspires unconscious forms;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She groped in his deeps for an invisible Law,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Fumbled in the dim subconscient for his mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And strove to find a way for spirit to be.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">But from the Night another answer came.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A seed was in that nether matrix cast,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A dumb unprobed husk of perverted truth,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A cell of an insentient infinite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A monstrous birth prepared its cosmic form<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In Nature&#8217;s titan embryo, Ignorance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then in a fatal and stupendous hour<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Something that sprang from the stark Inconscient&#8217;s sleep<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Unwillingly begotten by the mute Void,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Lifted its ominous head against the stars;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Overshadowing earth with its huge body of Doom&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 222<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It chilled the heavens with the menace of a face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A nameless Power, a shadowy Will arose<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Immense and alien to our universe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In the inconceivable Purpose none can gauge<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A vast Non-Being robed itself with shape,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The boundless Nescience of the unconscious depths<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Covered eternity with<br \/>\nNothingness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A seeking Mind replaced the seeing Soul:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Life grew into a huge and hungry death,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The Spirit&#8217;s bliss was changed to cosmic pain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Assuring God&#8217;s self-cowled neutrality<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A mighty opposition conquered Space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A sovereign ruling falsehood, death and grief,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It pressed its fierce<br \/>\nhegemony on earth;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Disharmonising the original style<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Of the architecture of her fate&#8217;s design,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It falsified the primal cosmic Will<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And bound to struggle and dread vicissitudes<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The long slow process of the patient Power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Implanting error in the stuff of things<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It made an Ignorance of the all-wise Law;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It baffled the sure touch of life&#8217;s hid sense,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Kept dumb the intuitive guide in Matter&#8217;s sleep,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Deformed the insect&#8217;s instinct and the brute&#8217;s,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Disfigured man&#8217;s thought-born humanity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A shadow fell across the simple Ray:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Obscured was the Truth-light in the cavern heart<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That burns unwitnessed in the altar crypt<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Behind the still velamen&#8217;s secrecy<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Companioning the Godhead of the shrine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Thus was the dire antagonist Energy born<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Who mimes the eternal Mother&#8217;s mighty shape<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And mocks her luminous infinity<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">With a grey distorted silhouette in the Night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She forced on life a slow and faltering pace;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 223<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Her hand&#8217;s deflecting and retarding weight<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Is laid on the mystic evolution&#8217;s curve:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The tortuous line of her deceiving mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The Gods see not and man is impotent;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Oppressing the God-spark within the soul<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She forces back to the beast the human fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Yet in her formidable instinctive mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She feels the One grow in the heart of Time<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And sees the Immortal shine through the human mould.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Casting its ray from the<br \/>\nSpirit&#8217;s lonely tent,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And in the cradle slay the divine Child.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Incalculable are her<br \/>\nstrength and ruse,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Her touch is a fascination and a death;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">She kills her victim with his own delight;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Even Good she makes a hook to drag to Hell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">For her the world runs to its agony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Often the pilgrim on the Eternal&#8217;s road<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or in devious by-ways wandering alone,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Falls overpowered by her lion leap,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Intoxicated by a burning breath<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And amorous grown<sup>1<\/sup> of a destroying mouth,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Once a companion of the sacred Fire,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The mortal perishes to God and Light,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An Adversary governs heart and brain,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A Nature hostile to the<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">Mother-force.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The self of life yields up its instruments<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">To Titan and demoniac agencies<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That aggrandise earth-nature and disframe:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A cowled fifth-columnist is now thought&#8217;s guide;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">His subtle defeatist murmur slays the faith&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>1<br \/>\nAlternative<br \/>\nreading : \u201cgroan\u201d<sup><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 224<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And, lodged in the breast or whispering from outside,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A lying inspiration fell and dark<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A new order substitutes for the divine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A silence falls upon the spirit&#8217;s heights,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">From the veiled sanctuary the God retires,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Empty and cold is the chamber of the Bride;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The golden Nimbus now is seen no more,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">No longer burns the white spiritual ray<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And hushed for ever is the secret Voice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then by the Angel of the Vigil Tower<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A name is struck from the recording book;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A flame that sang in Heaven sinks quenched and<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">mute,<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In ruin ends the epic of a soul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">This is the tragedy of the inner death<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">When forfeited is the divine element<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And only a mind and body live to die.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;text-indent:25px;line-height:150%\">For terrible agencies the Spirit allows<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And there are subtle and enormous Powers<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That shield themselves with the covering Ignorance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Offspring of the gulfs, agents of the shadowy Force,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Haters of light, intolerant of peace,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Aping to the thought the shining Friend and Guide,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Opposing in the heart the eternal Will,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">They veil the occult uplifting Harmonist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">His wisdom&#8217;s oracles are made our bonds;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The doors of God they have locked with keys of creed<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And shut out by the Law his tireless Grace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Along all Nature&#8217;s lines they have set their posts<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And intercept the caravans of Light;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Wherever the Gods act, they intervene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A yoke is laid upon the world&#8217;s dim heart;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Masked are its beats from the supernal Bliss,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And the closed peripheries of brilliant Mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Block the fine entries of celestial Fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Always the dark Adventurers seem to win;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 225<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Nature they fill with evil&#8217;s institutes,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Turn into defeats the victories of Truth,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Proclaim as falsehoods the eternal laws,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And load the dice of Doom with wizard lies;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The world&#8217;s shrines they have occupied, usurped its thrones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In scorn of the dwindling chances of the Gods<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">They claim creation as their conquered fief<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And crown themselves the iron Lords of Time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Adepts of the illusion and the<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">masque,<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The artificers of Nature&#8217;s fall and pain<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Have built their altars of triumphant Night<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In the clay temple of terrestrial life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In the vacant precincts of the sacred Fire,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In front of the reredos in the mystic rite<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Facing the dim velamen none can pierce,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Intones his solemn hymn the mitred priest<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Invoking their dreadful presence in his breast:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Attributing to them the awful Name<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He chants the syllables of the magic text<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And summons the unseen communion&#8217;s act,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">While twixt the incense and the muttered prayer<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">All the fierce bale with which the world is racked<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Is mixed in the foaming chalice of man&#8217;s heart<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And poured to them like sacramental wine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Assuming names divine they guide and rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Opponents of the Highest they have come<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Out of their world of soulless thought and power<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">To serve by enmity the cosmic scheme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Night is their refuge and strategic base.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Against the sword of Flame, the luminous Eye,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Bastioned they live in massive forts of gloom,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Calm and secure in sunless privacy:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">No wandering ray of Heaven can enter there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Armoured, protected by their lethal masks,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">As in a studio of creative Death<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 226<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The drama of the earth, their tragic stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">All who would raise the fallen world must come<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Under the dangerous arches of their power;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">For even the radiant children of the gods<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">To darken their privilege is and dreadful right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;text-indent:25px;line-height:150%\">This too the traveller of the worlds must dare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A warrior in the dateless duel&#8217;s strife,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He entered into dumb despairing Night<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Challenging the darkness with his luminous soul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Alarming with his steps the threshold gloom<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He came into a fierce and dolorous realm<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Peopled by souls who never had tasted bliss;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Ignorant like men born blind who know not light,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">They could equate worst ill with highest good,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Virtue was to their eyes a face of sin<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And evil and misery were their natural state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A dire administration&#8217;s penal code<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Making of grief and pain the common law,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Decreeing universal joylessness<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Had changed life into a stoic sacrament<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And torture into a daily festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An act was passed to chastise happiness;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Laughter and pleasure were banned as deadly sins:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A questionless mind was ranked as wise content,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A dull heart&#8217;s silent apathy as peace:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Sleep was not there, torpor was the sole rest,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Death came but neither respite gave nor end;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Always the soul lived on and suffered more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Ever he deeper probed that kingdom of pain;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Around him grew the terror of a world<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Of agony followed by worse agony,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And in the terror a great wicked joy<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Glad of one&#8217;s own and<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">other&#8217;s<\/font> calamity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There thought and life were a long punishment,&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 227<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The breath a burden and all hope a scourge,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The body a field of torment, a massed unease;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Repose was a waiting between pang and pang.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">This was the law of things none dreamed to change:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A hard sombre heart, a harsh unsmiling mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Rejected happiness like a cloying sweet;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Tranquillity was a tedium and ennui:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Only by suffering life grew colourful;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It needed the spice of pain, the salt of tears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">If one could cease to be, all would be well;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Else only fierce sensations gave some zest:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A fury of jealousy burning the gnawed heart,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The sting of murderous spite and hate and lust,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The whisper that lures to the pit and treachery&#8217;s stroke<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Threw vivid spots on the dull aching hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">To watch the drama of infelicity,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The writhing of creatures under the harrow of doom<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And sorrow&#8217;s tragic gaze into the night<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And horror and the hammering heart of fear<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Were the ingredients in Time&#8217;s heavy cup<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That pleased and helped to enjoy its bitter taste.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Of such fierce stuff was made up life&#8217;s long hell:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">These were the threads of the dark spider&#8217;s-web<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In which the soul was caught, quivering and<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\nwrapt;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">This was religion, this was Nature&#8217;s rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In a fell chapel of iniquity<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">To worship a black pitiless image of Power<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Kneeling one must cross hard-hearted stony courts,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A pavement like a floor of evil fate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Each stone was a keen edge of ruthless force<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And glued with the chilled blood from tortured breasts;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The dry gnarled trees stood up like dying men<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Stiffened into a pose of agony,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And from each window peered an ominous priest<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Chanting Te Deums for slaughter&#8217;s crowning grace,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\"><font size=\"3\">Cities<br \/>\nuprooted,<\/font> blasted human homes,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Burned writhen bodies, the bombshell&#8217;s massacre.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 228<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">\u201cOur enemies are<br \/>\nfallen, are fallen\u201d, they sang,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">\u201cAll who once stayed our will are smitten and dead;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">How great we are, how merciful art Thou.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Thus thought they to reach God&#8217;s impassive throne<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And him command whom all their acts opposed,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Magnifying their deeds to touch his skies,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And make him an accomplice of their crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There no relenting pity could have place,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">But ruthless strength and iron moods had sway,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A dateless sovereignty of terror and gloom:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">This took the figure of a darkened God<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Revered by the racked wretchedness he had made,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Who held in thrall a miserable world,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And helpless hearts nailed to unceasing woe<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Adored the feet that trampled them into mire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It was a world of sorrow and of hate,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Sorrow with hatred for its lonely joy,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hatred with others&#8217; sorrow as its feast;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A bitter rictus curled the suffering mouth;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A tragic cruelty saw its ominous chance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hate was the black archangel of that realm;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">It glowed, a sombre jewel in the heart<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Burning the soul with its malignant rays,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And wallowed in its fell abysm of might.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">These passions even objects seemed to exude,\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">For mind overflowed into the inanimate<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">That answered with the wickedness it received,\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Against their users used malignant powers,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hurt without hands and strangely, suddenly slew,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Appointed as instruments of an unseen doom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or they made themselves a fateful prison wall<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Where men condemned wake through the creeping hours<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Counted by the<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">toilings<\/font> of an ominous bell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">An evil environment worsened evil souls:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">All things were conscious there and all perverse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In this infernal realm he dared to press<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Even into its deepest pit and darkest core,&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 229<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Perturbed its tenebrous base, dared to contest<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its ancient privileged right and absolute force:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In Night he plunged to know her dreadful heart,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In Hell he sought the root and cause of Hell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Its anguished gulfs opened in his own breast;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He listened to clamours of its crowded pain,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The heart-beats of its fatal loneliness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Above was a chill deaf eternity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In vague tremendous passages of Doom<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He heard the goblin voice that guides to slay,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And faced the enchantments of the demon Sign,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And traversed the ambush of the opponent Snake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In menacing tracts, in tortured solitudes<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Companionless he roamed through desolate ways<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Where the red Wolf waits by the fordless stream<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And Death&#8217;s black eagles scream to the precipice,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And met the hounds of bale who hunt men&#8217;s hearts<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Baying across the veldts of Destiny,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In footless battlefields of the Abyss<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Fought shadowy combats in mute eyeless depths,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Assaults of Hell endured and Titan strokes<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A prisoner of a hooded magic Force,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Captured and trailed in Falsehood&#8217;s lethal net<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And often strangled in the noose of grief,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or cast on the grim morass of swallowing doubt,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or shut into pits of error and despair,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He drank her poison draughts till none was left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In a world where neither hope nor joy could come<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The ordeal he suffered of evil&#8217;s absolute reign,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Yet kept intact his spirit&#8217;s radiant truth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Incapable of motion or of force,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In Matter&#8217;s blank denial gaoled and blind,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Pinned to the black inertia of our base<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He treasured between his hands his flickering soul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">His being ventured into mindless Void,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Intolerant gulfs that knew not thought nor sense;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 230<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Thought ceased, sense failed, his soul still saw and knew.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In atomic parcellings of the Infinite<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Near to the dumb beginnings of lost Self,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He felt the curious small futility<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Of the creation of material things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Or, stifled in the Inconscient&#8217;s hollow dusk,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He sounded the mystery dark and bottomless<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Of the enormous and unmeaning deeps<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Whence struggling life in a dead universe rose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There in the stark identity lost by mind<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He felt the sealed sense of the insensible world<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And a mute wisdom in the unknowing Night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Into the abysmal secrecy he came<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Where darkness peers from her mattress, grey and nude,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And stood on the last locked subconscient&#8217;s floor<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Where Being slept unconscious of its thoughts<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And built the world not knowing what it built.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There waiting its hour the future lay unknown,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There is the record of the vanished stars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There in the slumber of the cosmic Will<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He saw the secret key of Nature&#8217;s change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A light was with him, an invisible hand<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Was laid upon the error and the pain<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Till it became a quivering ecstasy,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The shock of sweetness of an arm&#8217;s embrace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He saw in Night the Eternal&#8217;s shadowy veil,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Knew death for a cellar of the house of life,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In destruction felt creation&#8217;s hasty pace,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Knew loss as the price of a celestial gain<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And hell as a short cut to heaven&#8217;s gates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then in Illusion&#8217;s occult factory<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And in the Inconscient&#8217;s magic printing house<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Torn were the formats of the primal Night<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And shattered the stereotypes of Ignorance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Alive, breathing a deep spiritual breath,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Nature expunged her stiff mechanical code<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And the articles of the bound soul&#8217;s contract,&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 231<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;color:blue'><\/p>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Falsehood gave back to Truth her tortured shape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Annulled were the tables of the law of<br \/>\npain,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And in their place grew luminous characters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The skilful Penman&#8217;s unseen finger wrote<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">His swift intuitive calligraphy;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Earth&#8217;s forms were made his divine documents,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The wisdom embodied mind could not reveal,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Inconscience chased from the world&#8217;s voiceless breast;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Transfigured were the fixed schemes of reasoning Thought.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Arousing consciousness in things inert,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">He imposed upon dark atom and dumb mass<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The diamond script of the Imperishable,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Inscribed on the dim heart of fallen things<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">A paean-song of the free Infinite<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And the Name, foundation of eternity,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And traced on the awake exultant cells<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In the ideographs of the Ineffable<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The lyric of the love that waits through Time<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And the mystic volume of the Book of Bliss<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And the message of the superconscient Fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Then Life beat pure in the corporeal frame;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The infernal Gleam died and could slay no more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Hell split across its huge abrupt fa\u00e7ade<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">As if a magic building were undone,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Night opened and vanished like a gulf of dream.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Into being&#8217;s gap scooped out as empty Space<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">In which she has filled the place of absent God,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">There poured a wide intimate and blissful<br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">Dawn,<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Healed were all things that Time&#8217;s torn heart had made<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">And sorrow could live no more in Nature&#8217;s breast:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Division ceased to be, for God was there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">The soul lit the conscious body with its ray,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">Matter and Spirit mingled and were one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;line-height:150%\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>End of Canto Eight&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 232<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"16%\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Canto Eight&nbsp; &nbsp; The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness&nbsp; &nbsp; Then could he see the hidden heart&#8230;<\/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-506","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\/506","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=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}