The Mother Reads Selections from Savitri by Sri Aurobindo
Book 12. The Book of the Double Twilight. The Return to Earth.
Out of abysmal trance her spirit woke.
Lain on the earth-mother’s calm inconscient breast
She saw the green-clad branches lean above
Guarding her sleep with their enchanted life,
And overhead a blue-winged ecstasy
Fluttered from bough to bough with high-pitched call.
. . .
The immense remoteness of her trance had passed;
Human she was once more, earth’s Savitri,
Yet felt in her illimitable change.
[p. 715]
. . .
But soon she leaned down over her loved to call
His mind back to her with her travelling touch
On his closed eyelids; settled was her still look
Of strong delight, not yearning now, but large
With limitless joy or sovereign last content,
Pure, passionate with the passion of the gods.
[p. 716]
. . .
Then sighing to her touch the soft-winged sleep
Rose hovering from his flower-like lids and flew
Murmurous away. Awake, he found her eyes
. . .
He murmured with hesitating lips her name,
And vaguely recollecting wonder cried,
“Whence hast thou brought me captive back, love-chained,
[p. 717]
. . .
Where now has passed that formidable Shape
Which rose against us? the Spirit of the Void,
Claiming the world for Death and Nothingness,
Denying God and Soul? Or was all a dream
Or a vision seen in a spiritual sleep,
. . .
But she replied, “Our parting was the dream;
We are together, we live, O Satyavan.
Look round thee and behold, glad and unchanged
Our home, this forest, with its thousand cries
And the whisper of the wind among the leaves
And, through rifts in emerald scene, the evening sky,
[pp. 717-718]
. . .
But he with a new wonder in his heart
And a new flame of worship in his eyes:
“What high change is in thee, O Savitri? Bright
Ever thou wast, a goddess still and pure,
Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts
Earth gave thee making thee yet more divine.
. . .
But now thou seemst almost too high and great
For mortal worship; Time lies below thy feet
And the whole world seems only a part of thee,
[p. 718]
. . .
My human earth will still demand thy bliss:
Make still my life through thee a song of joy
And all my silence wide and deep with thee.”
. . .
“All now is changed, yet all is still the same.
. . .
Still am I she who came to thee mid the murmur
Of sunlit leaves upon this forest verge;
I am the Madran, I am Savitri.
[p. 719]
. . .
Let us give joy to all, for joy is ours.
For not for ourselves alone our spirits came
Out of the veil of the Unmanifest,
. . .
Two fires that burn towards that parent Sun,
Two rays that travel to the original Light.
To lead man’s soul towards Truth and God we are born,
To draw the chequered scheme of mortal life
Into some semblance of the Immortal’s plan,
. . .
Then hand in hand they left that solemn place
Full now of mute unusual memories,
To the green distance of their sylvan, home
Returning slowly through the forest’s heart:
. . .
Topped by a flaring multitude of lights
A great resplendent company arrived.
. . .
In front King Dyumathsena walked, no more
Blind, faltering limbed, but his far-questing eyes
Restored to all their confidence in light
Took seeingly this imaged outer world;
. . .
By him that queen and mother’s anxious face
Came changed from its habitual burdened look
. . .
And the swift parents hurrying to their child,—
Their cause of life now who had given him breath,—
Possessed him with their arms. Then tenderly
Cried Dyumathsena chiding Satyavan:
“The fortunate gods have looked on me today,
A kingdom seeking came and heaven’s rays.
But where wast thou? Thou hast tormented gladness
With fear’s dull shadow, O my child, my life.
[p. 722]
. . .
Not like thyself was this done, Savitri,
Who ledst not back thy husband to our arms,
. . .
But Satyavan replied with smiling lips,
“Lay all on her; she is the cause of all.
With her enchantments she has twined me round.
Behold, at noon leaving this house of clay
I wandered in far-off eternities,
Yet still, a captive in her golden hands,
I tread your little hillock called green earth
. . .
Then one spoke there who seemed a priest and sage,
“O woman soul, what light, what power revealed,
Working the rapid marvels of this day,
Opens for us by thee a happier age?”
Her lashes fluttering upwards gathered in
To a vision which had scanned immortal things,
. . .
Then falling veiled the light. Low she replied,
“Awakened to the meaning of my heart
That to feel love and oneness is to live
And this the magic of our golden change
Is all the truth I know or seek, O sage.”
Wondering at her and her too luminous words
Westward they turned in the fast gathering night.
[pp. 723-724]
. . .
Drawn by white manes upon a high-roofed car
In flare of the unsteady torches went
With linked hands Satyavan and Savitri,
Hearing a marriage march and nuptial hymn,
Where waited them the many-voiced human world.
Numberless the stars swam on their shadowy field
Describing in the gloom the ways of light.
Then while they skirted yet the southward verge,
Lost in the halo of her musing brows
Night, splendid with the moon dreaming in heaven
In silver peace, possessed her luminous reign.
She brooded through her stillness on a thought
Deep-guarded by her mystic folds of light,
And in her bosom nursed a greater dawn.
[p. 724]End of Book 12
