Aurobindo 83 Savitri Book 5 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Five: The Book of Love
Canto Two: Satyavan
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'For suddenly her heart looked out at him, '
'The passionate seeing used thought cannot match'
'All in a moment was surprised and seized, '
'A mystic tumult from her depths arose; '
'Arising to a hymn of wonder's priests
Her soul flung wide its doors to this new sun.'
'A swift and fated turning of her days
Appeared and stretched to a gleam of unknown worlds.'

'And Satyavan looked out from his soul's doors
And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice
Fill his youth's purple ambience and endured
The haunting miracle of a perfect face.'
'Mastered by the honey of a strange flower-mouth,
Drawn to soul-spaces opening round a brow,
He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon'
'An unknown imperious force drew him to her.'

'Gaze met close gaze and clung in sight's embrace.'
'He met in her regard his future's gaze, '
'In these great spirits now incarnate here
Love brought down power out of eternity
To make of life his new undying base.'
'Love's adoration like a mystic seer
Through vision looks at the invisible,
In earth's alphabet finds a godlike sense; '

'By the revealing greatness of a look,
Form-smitten the spirit's memory woke in sense.
The mist was torn that lay between two lives;
Her heart unveiled and his to find her turned;
'A moment passed that was eternity's ray,
An hour began, the matrix of new Time.'......

............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 5 Canto 2

Page 395

All in inconscient ecstasy lain wrapped
Or under imagination's coloured lids
Held up in a large mirror-air of dream,
Broke forth in flame to recreate the world,
And in that flame to new things she was born.

Haled, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,
Life ran to gaze from every gate of sense:

Thoughts indistinct and glad in moon-mist heavens,
Feelings as when a universe takes birth,
Swept through the turmoil of her bosom's space
Invaded by a swarm of golden gods:

Page 396

Then trembling with the mystic shock her heart
Moved in her breast and cried out like a bird
Who hears his mate upon a neighbouring bough.
Hooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased;
The chariot stood like an arrested wind.

His self-bound nature foundered as in fire;

The splendid lonely idols of his brain
Fell prostrate from their bright sufficiencies,
As at the touch of a new infinite,
To worship a godhead greater than their own.

This golden figure given to his grasp
Hid in its breast the key of all his aims,
A spell to bring the Immortal's bliss on earth,
To mate with heaven's truth our mortal thought,
To lift earth-hearts nearer the Eternal's sun.

There is a Power within that knows beyond
Our knowings; we are greater than our thoughts,
And sometimes earth unveils that vision here.

To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity's spheres.

Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights
That steal his name and shape and ecstasy,
He is still the godhead by which all can change.

Page 398

Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,


Love's adoration like a mystic seer
Through vision looks at the invisible,
In earth's alphabet finds a godlike sense;
54 But the mind only thinks, "Behold the one
For whom my life has waited long unfilled,
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days."
Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;
All strives to enforce the unity all is.

Page 399

Attracted as in heaven star by star,
They wondered at each other and rejoiced
And wove affinity in a silent gaze.

End of Book 5 Canto 2