Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom

      When she is seized by her discovered lord.

      A mighty shuddering coil of ecstasy

      Crept through the deep heart of the universe.

      Out of her Matter’s stupor, her mind’s dreams,

      She woke, she looked upon God’s unveiled face.

      Even as he sang and rapture stole through earth-time

      And caught the heavens, came with a call of hooves,

      As of her swift heart hastening, Savitri;

      Her radiant tread glimmered across the floor.

      A happy wonder in her fathomless gaze,

      Changed by the halo of her love she came;

      Her eyes rich with a shining mist of joy

      As one who comes from a heavenly embassy

      Discharging the proud mission of her heart,

      One carrying the sanction of the gods

      To her love and its luminous eternity,

      She stood before her mighty father’s throne

      And, eager for beauty on discovered earth

      Transformed and new in her heart’s miracle-light,

      Saw like a rose of marvel, worshipping,

      The fire-tinged sweetness of the son of Heaven.

      He flung on her his vast immortal look;

      His inner gaze surrounded her with its light

      And reining back knowledge from his immortal lips

      He cried to her, “Who is this that comes, the bride,

      The flame-born, and round her illumined head

      Pouring their lights her hymeneal pomps

      Move flashing about her? From what green glimmer of glades

      Retreating into dewy silences

      Or half-seen verge of waters moon-betrayed

      Bringst thou this glory of enchanted eyes?

      Earth has gold-hued expanses, shadowy hills

      That cowl their dreaming phantom heads in night,

      And, guarded in a cloistral joy of woods,

      Screened banks sink down into felicity

      Seized by the curved incessant yearning hands

      And ripple-passion of the upgazing stream:

      Amid cool-lipped murmurs of its pure embrace

      They lose their souls on beds of trembling reeds.

      And all these are mysterious presences

      In which some spirit’s immortal bliss is felt,

      And they betray the earth-born heart to joy.

      There hast thou paused, and marvelling borne eyes

      Unknown, or heard a voice that forced thy life

      To strain its rapture through thy listening soul?

      Or, if my thought could trust this shimmering gaze,

      It would say thou hast not drunk from an earthly cup,

      But stepping through azure curtains of the noon

      Thou wast surrounded on a magic verge

      In brighter countries than man’s eyes can bear.

      Assailed by trooping voices of delight

      And seized mid a sunlit glamour of the boughs

      In faery woods, led down the gleaming slopes

      Of Gandhamadan where the Apsaras roam,

      Thy limbs have shared the sports which none has seen,

      And in god-haunts thy human footsteps strayed,

      Thy mortal bosom quivered with god-speech

      And thy soul answered to a Word unknown.

      What feet of gods, what ravishing flutes of heaven

      Have thrilled high melodies round, from near and far

      Approaching through the soft and revelling air,

      Which still surprised thou hearest? They have fed

      Thy silence on some red strange-ecstasied fruit

      And thou hast trod the dim moon-peaks of bliss.

      Reveal, O winged with light, whence thou hast flown

      Hastening bright-hued through the green tangled earth,

      Thy body rhythmical with the spring-bird’s call.

      The empty roses of thy hands are filled

      Only with their own beauty and the thrill

      Of a remembered clasp, and in thee glows

      A heavenly jar, thy firm deep-honied heart,

      New-brimming with a sweet and nectarous wine.

      Thou hast not spoken with the kings of pain.

      Life’s perilous music rings yet to thy ear

      Far-melodied, rapid and grand, a Centaur’s song,

      Or soft as water plashing mid the hills,

      Or mighty as a great chant of many winds.

      Moon-bright thou livest in thy inner bliss.

      Thou comest like a silver deer through groves

      Of coral flowers and buds of glowing dreams,

      Or fleest like a wind-goddess through leaves,

      Or roamst, O ruby-eyed and snow-winged dove,

      Flitting through thickets of thy pure desires

      In the unwounded beauty of thy soul.

      These things are only images to thy earth,

      But truest truth of that which in thee sleeps.

      For such is thy spirit, a sister of the gods,

      Thy earthly body lovely to the eyes

      And thou art kin in joy to heaven’s sons.

      O thou who hast come to this great perilous world

      Now only seen through the splendour of thy dreams,

      Where hardly love and beauty can live safe,

      Thyself a being dangerously great,

      A soul alone in a golden house of thought

      Has lived walled in by the safety of thy dreams.

      On heights of happiness leaving doom asleep

      Who hunts unseen the unconscious lives of men,

      If thy heart could live locked in the ideal’s gold,

      As high, as happy might thy waking be!

      If for all time doom could be left to sleep!”

      He spoke but held his knowledge back from words

      As a cloud plays with lightnings’ vivid laugh,

      But still holds back the thunder in its heart,

      Only he let bright images escape.

      His speech like glimmering music veiled his thoughts;

      As a wind flatters the bright summer air,

      Pitiful to mortals, only to them it spoke

      Of