Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

the soul divines;

      The eye of the great world discovered her

      And wonder lifted up its bardic voice.

      A key to a Light still kept in being’s cave,

      The sun-word of an ancient mystery’s sense,

      Her name ran murmuring on the lips of men

      Exalted and sweet like an inspired verse

      Struck from the epic lyre of rumour’s winds

      Or sung like a chanted thought by the poet Fame.

      But like a sacred symbol’s was that cult.

      Admired, unsought, intangible to the grasp

      Her beauty and flaming strength were seen afar

      Like lightning playing with the fallen day,

      A glory unapproachably divine.

      No equal heart came close to join her heart,

      No transient earthly love assailed her calm,

      No hero passion had the strength to seize;

      No eyes demanded her replying eyes.

      A Power within her awed the imperfect flesh;

      The self-protecting genius in our clay

      Divined the goddess in the woman’s shape

      And drew back from a touch beyond its kind

      The earth-nature bound in sense-life’s narrow make.

      The hearts of men are amorous of clay-kin

      And bear not spirits lone and high who bring

      Fire-intimations from the deathless planes

      Too vast for souls not born to mate with heaven.

      Whoever is too great must lonely live.

      Adored he walks in mighty solitude;

      Vain is his labour to create his kind,

      His only comrade is the Strength within.

      Thus was it for a while with Savitri.

      All worshipped marvellingly, none dared to claim.

      Her mind sat high pouring its golden beams,

      Her heart was a crowded temple of delight.

      A single lamp lit in perfection’s house,

      A bright pure image in a priestless shrine,

      Midst those encircling lives her spirit dwelt,

      Apart in herself until her hour of fate.

      End of Canto Two

      Canto Three

      The Call to the Quest

      A morn that seemed a new creation’s front,

      Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies,

      Came burdened with a beauty moved and strange

      Out of the changeless origin of things.

      An ancient longing struck again new roots:

      The air drank deep of unfulfilled desire;

      The high trees trembled with a wandering wind

      Like souls that quiver at the approach of joy,

      And in a bosom of green secrecy

      For ever of its one love-note untired

      A lyric coïl cried among the leaves.

      Away from the terrestrial murmur turned

      Where transient calls and answers mix their flood,

      King Aswapati listened through the ray

      To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.

      On a subtle interspace which rings our life,

      Unlocked were the inner spirit’s trance-closed doors:

      The inaudible strain in Nature could be caught;

      Across this cyclic tramp of eager lives,

      Across the deep urgency of present cares,

      Earth’s wordless hymn to the Ineffable

      Arose from the silent heart of the cosmic Void;

      He heard the voice repressed of unborn Powers

      Murmuring behind the luminous bars of Time.

      Again the mighty yearning raised its flame

      That asks a perfect life on earth for men

      And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind

      And shadowless bliss for suffering human hearts

      And Truth embodied in an ignorant world

      And godhead divinising mortal forms.

      A word that leaped from some far sky of thought,

      Admitted by the cowled receiving scribe

      Traversed the echoing passages of his brain

      And left its stamp on the recording cells.

      “O Force-compelled, Fate-driven earth-born race,

      O petty adventurers in an infinite world

      And prisoners of a dwarf humanity,

      How long will you tread the circling tracks of mind

      Around your little self and petty things?

      But not for a changeless littleness were you meant,

      Not for vain repetition were you built;

      Out of the Immortal’s substance you were made;

      Your actions can be swift revealing steps,

      Your life a changeful mould for growing gods.

      A Seer, a strong Creator, is within,

      The immaculate Grandeur broods upon your days,

      Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells.

      A greater destiny waits you in your front:

      This transient earthly being if he wills

      Can fit his acts to a transcendent scheme.

      He who now stares at the world with ignorant eyes

      Hardly from the Inconscient’s night aroused,

      That look at images and not at Truth,

      Can fill those orbs with an immortal’s sight.

      Yet shall the godhead grow within your hearts,

      You shall awake into the spirit’s air

      And feel the breaking walls of mortal mind

      And hear the message which left life’s heart dumb

      And look through Nature with sun-gazing lids

      And blow your conch-shells at the Eternal’s gate.

      Authors of earth’s high change, to you it is given

      To cross the dangerous spaces of the soul

      And touch the mighty Mother stark awake

      And meet the Omnipotent in this house of flesh

      And make of life the million-bodied One.

      The earth you tread is a border screened from heaven;

      The life you lead conceals the light you are.

      Immortal Powers sweep flaming past your doors;

      Far-off upon