Aurobindo 153 Savitri Book 10 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Three - The Debate of Love and Death
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

Oh Death, you sound satanic and not godly..
'For who, being mortal, can dwell glad alone?
Then Satyavan shall glide into the past,
A gentle memory pushed away from thee
By new love and thy children's tender hands,
Till thou shalt wonder if thou lov'dst at all.
Such is the life earth's travail has conceived,
A constant stream that never is the same.'

'But Savitri replied to mighty Death:
'O dark ironic critic of God's work,
'Mine is a heart that worshipped, though forsaken,
The image of the god its love adored; '
'Why dost thou vainly strive with me, O Death, '
'For now at last I know beyond all doubt,
The great stars burn with my unceasing fire'
'Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory; '

'All shall be seized, transcended; there shall kiss
Casting their veils before the marriage fire
The eternal bridegroom and eternal bride.
The heavens accept our broken flights at last.
On our life's prow that breaks the waves of Time
No signal light of hope has gleamed in vain.'
'Thus with armed speech the great opponents strove.'
'Intent upon her silent will she walked'

'But now her spirit's flame of conscient force
Retiring from a sweetness without fruit
Called back her thoughts from speech to sit within
In a deep room in meditation's house.'
'Death walked in front of her and Satyavan,
In the dark front of Death, a failing star.'...

My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May there so, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused there so be knowledge and fortune

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Note; Some more inspiring descriptive and
informative lines from Book 10 Canto 3


Page 638&639

She spoke; the boundless members of the god
As if by secret ecstasy assailed,
Shuddered in silence as obscurely stir
Ocean's dim fields delivered to the moon.
Then lifted up as by a sudden wind
Around her in that vague and glimmering world
The twilight trembled like a bursting veil.

Page 639

Around those spirits in the glittering mist
A deepening half-light fled with pearly wings
As if to reach some far ideal Morn.

Outlined her thoughts flew through the gleaming haze
Mingling bright-pinioned with its lights and veils
And all her words like dazzling jewels were caught
Into the glow of a mysterious world,
Or tricked in the rainbow shifting of its hues
Like echoes swam fainting into far sound.

All utterance, all mood must there become
An unenduring tissue sewn by mind
To make a gossamer robe of beautiful change.

A floating veil of visions in her front,
A trailing robe of dreams behind her feet.

The mortal led, the god and spirit obeyed
And she behind was leader of their march
And they in front were followers of her will.
Onward they journeyed through the drifting ways
Vaguely companioned by the glimmering mists.

A heaven-bird upon jewelled wings of wind
Borne like a coloured and embosomed fire,
By spirits carried in a pearl-hued cave,
On through the enchanted dimness moved her soul.


End of Book-10 Canto-3