The Shadow That Chases the Great, p. 423

Opening Remarks
Aswapati now reveals something that he too has felt about Savitri’s future but in a guarded way.

Flame of radiant happiness
A flame of radiant happiness she was born
And surely will that flame set earth alight:
Doom surely will see her pass and say no word!

Aswapati has felt her as a flame child full of radiant happiness that is meant to set the world alight. He closes with a wish that doom will surely pass by her leaving her untouched and safe.

Hands of fate
But too often here the careless Mother leaves
Her chosen in the envious hands of Fate:
The harp of God falls mute, its call to bliss
Discouraged fails mid earth’s unhappy sounds;
The strings of the siren Ecstasy cry not here
Or soon are silenced in the human heart.

Aswapati observes however that though he wishes a sunlit life of radiant happiness for his daughter Savitri, those chosen by God have to often go under the harrows of difficult fate. The happiness giving harps of God.
Falls mute and its call to bliss fails amid unhappy events and circumstances of earthly life. The music of the Siren ecstasy either do not cry here or are soon quietened in the human heart.

Wish of Aswapati
Of sorrow’s songs we have enough: bid once
Her glad and griefless days bring heaven here.

Aswapati however wishes that at least once, one life, should be a happy song of griefless days drawing heaven near. The story of most lives are struck with tragic notes. Let one life be freed from its clutch.

Great of soul
Or must fire always test the great of soul?

He muses that the great are always tested by going through the fire.

Let unwounded pass
Along the dreadful causeway of the Gods,
Armoured with love and faith and sacred joy,
A traveller to the Eternal’s house,
Once let unwounded pass a mortal life.”

She is a traveller to the Eternal’s House and must as such pass through the dreadful causeways of the Gods armoured with love and faith and sacred joy, on their way to the Eternal. A prayer thence rises from his heart that let at least her daughter pass unwounded through life for once.

Fate is lord
But Narad answered not; silent he sat,
Knowing that words are vain and Fate is lord.

Hearing the king, Narad remained silent knowing that are not going to change the course of Fate.

Narad inquires
He looked into the unseen with seeing eyes,
Then, dallying with the mortal’s ignorance
Like one who knows not, questioning, he cried:
“On what high mission went her hastening wheels?

Narad looked into the future with his seer vision and then playing the human ignorance as if he does not know, he asked as the purpose of Savitri’s journey.

What face supreme
Whence came she with this glory in her heart
And Paradise made visible in her eyes?
What sudden God has met, what face supreme?”

He inquires about the cause of the radiance and joy in her heart and the vision of Paradise in her eyes. He asks her whom has she met, what face that holds to her the supreme sense.

Closing Remarks
The conversation between Aswapati and Narad and the queen is preparing the stage for a wonderful prophesy and revelation.