Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

      Left to it unfinished from her halting past,

      When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled

      And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.

      Transcended now was the poor human rule;

      A sovereign power was there, a godlike will.

      A moment yet she lingered motionless

      And looked down on the dead man at her feet;

      Then like a tree recovering from a wind

      She raised her noble head; fronting her gaze

      Something stood there, unearthly, sombre, grand,

      A limitless denial of all being

      That wore the terror and wonder of a shape.

      In its appalling eyes the tenebrous Form

      Bore the deep pity of destroying gods;

      A sorrowful irony curved the dreadful lips

      That speak the word of doom. Eternal Night

      In the dire beauty of an immortal face

      Pitying arose, receiving all that lives

      For ever into its fathomless heart, refuge

      Of creatures from their anguish and world-pain.

      His shape was nothingness made real, his limbs

      Were monuments of transience and beneath

      Brows of unwearying calm large godlike lids

      Silent beheld the writhing serpent, life.

      Unmoved their timeless wide unchanging gaze

      Had seen the unprofitable cycles pass,

      Survived the passing of unnumbered stars

      And sheltered still the same immutable orbs.

      The two opposed each other with their eyes,

      Woman and universal god: around her,

      Piling their void unbearable loneliness

      Upon her mighty uncompanioned soul,

      Many inhuman solitudes came close.

      Vacant eternities forbidding hope

      Laid upon her their huge and lifeless look,

      And to her ears, silencing earthly sounds,

      A sad and formidable voice arose

      Which seemed the whole adverse world’s. “Unclasp”, it cried,

      “Thy passionate influence and relax, O slave

      Of Nature, changing tool of changeless Law,

      Who vainly writh’st rebellion to my yoke,

      Thy elemental grasp; weep and forget.

      Entomb thy passion in its living grave.

      Leave now the once-loved spirit’s abandoned robe:

      Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth.”

      It ceased, she moved not, and it spoke again,

      Lowering its mighty key to human chords, –

      Yet a dread cry behind the uttered sounds,

      Echoing all sadness and immortal scorn,

      Moaned like a hunger of far wandering waves.

      “Wilt thou for ever keep thy passionate hold,

      Thyself a creature doomed like him to pass,

      Denying his soul death’s calm and silent rest?

      Relax thy grasp; this body is earth’s and thine,

      His spirit now belongs to a greater power.

      Woman, thy husband suffers.” Savitri

      Drew back her heart’s force that clasped his body still

      Where from her lap renounced on the smooth grass

      Softly it lay, as often before in sleep

      When from their couch she rose in the white dawn

      Called by her daily tasks: now too, as if called,

      She rose and stood gathered in lonely strength,

      Like one who drops his mantle for a race

      And waits the signal, motionlessly swift.

      She knew not to what course: her spirit above

      On the crypt-summit of her secret form

      Like one left sentinel on a mountain crest,

      A fiery-footed splendour puissant-winged,

      Watched flaming-silent, with her voiceless soul

      Like a still sail upon a windless sea.

      White passionless it rode, an anchored might,

      Waiting what far-ridged impulse should arise

      Out of the eternal depths and cast its surge.

      Then Death the king leaned boundless down, as leans

      Night over tired lands, when evening pales

      And fading gleams break down the horizon’s walls,

      Nor yet the dusk grows mystic with the moon.

      The dim and awful godhead rose erect

      From his brief stooping to his touch on earth,

      And, like a dream that wakes out of a dream,

      Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,

      Another luminous Satyavan arose,

      Starting upright from the recumbent earth

      As if someone over viewless borders stepped

      Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds.

      In the earth’s day the silent marvel stood

      Between the mortal woman and the god.

      Such seemed he as if one departed came

      Wearing the light of a celestial shape

      Splendidly alien to the mortal air.

      The mind sought things long loved and fell back foiled

      From unfamiliar hues, beheld yet longed,

      By the sweet radiant form unsatisfied,

      Incredulous of its too bright hints of heaven;

      Too strange the brilliant phantasm to life’s clasp

      Desiring the warm creations of the earth

      Reared in the ardour of material suns,

      The senses seized in vain a glorious shade:

      Only the spirit knew the spirit still,

      And the heart divined the old loved heart, though changed.

      Between two realms he stood, not wavering,

      But fixed in quiet strong expectancy,

      Like one who, sightless, listens for a command.

      So were they immobile on that earthly field,

      Powers not of earth, though one in human clay.

      On either side of one two spirits strove;

      Silence battled with silence, vast with vast.

      But now the impulse of the Path was felt

      Moving from the Silence that supports the stars

      To touch the confines of the visible