Opening Remarks
The message of the seasons is that spring invariably follows winters bringing with it a burst of creativity. Here the coming of spring is linked to the birth of Savitri that is to say, the advent of the Divine Mother, the original Creative Force.
An ardent lover
Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves
And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp;
His advent was a fire of irised hues,
His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy.
Spring is being described here as an ardent lover leaping through leaves to clasp the earth as his bride. He came full of rainbow colours carrying joy in his arms. It is perhaps due to this that the coming of spring is celebrated as a festival of love and of colours in many parts of the world. After a period of reconstituting reflective state when the past is being shed then spring comes to give a new impetus to life.
Call to the Transcendent’s sphere
His voice was a call to the Transcendent’s sphere
Whose secret touch upon our mortal lives
Keeps ever new the thrill that made the world,
Remoulds an ancient sweetness to new shapes
And guards intact unchanged by death and Time
The answer of our hearts to Nature’s charm
And keeps for ever new, yet still the same,
The throb that ever wakes to the old delight
And beauty and rapture and the joy to live.
He came to renew the ancient charm of love and joy that runs as a sap of life within all creatures. This creative urge in nature is a reliving of the first creative impulsion that built the worlds. His coming brought a new pulsation, a throb of rapture and beauty and delight.
Magic and the spell
His coming brought the magic and the spell;
At his touch life’s tired heart grew glad and young;
He made joy a willing prisoner in her breast.
The advent of spring is like magic filling the quiet and cold hush of autumn with colours and scents and new blooms. The heart feels glad and young at his touch upon our life like the touch of a new love. His coming captured joy for a brief human hour.
Grasp of a young god
His grasp was a young god’s upon earth’s limbs:
Changed by the passion of his divine outbreak
He made her body beautiful with his kiss.
His clasp was like a young god holding earth’s limbs. Her body seemed to bloom with beauty by the passion of her lover.
Impatient for felicity
Impatient for felicity he came,
High-fluting with the coïl’s happy voice,
His peacock turban trailing on the trees;
His breath was a warm summons to delight,
The dense voluptuous azure was his gaze.
He came impatient for felicity calling with the coil’s (an Indian bird known for its melodious voice) voice as if from some flute of god. He wore a peacock turban formed by the flowers and his breath was a call to some ancient delight. The sky seemed to turn a voluptuous blue as if it had turned into a gaze of love cast upon the earth.
Closing Remarks
Sri Aurobindo introduces us to the joy that is born with the spring as if it was an indication of the advent of a greater love that is to manifest upon earth.
About Savitri | B1C3-11 Towards Unity with God (pp.31-33)