Savitri, boek 7 t/m 9: : The Book of Yoga, The Book of Death, The Book of Eternal Night

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SAVITRI, INHOUD (klik op de link om direct naar het betreffende boek te gaan)

1. The Book of Beginnings

2. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

3. The Book of the Divine Mother

4. The Book of Birth and Quest

5. The Book of Love

6. The Book of Fate

7. The Book of Yoga

8. The Book of Death

9. The Book of Eternal Night

10. The Book of the Double Twilight

11. The Book of Everlasting Day

12. Epilogue

Book Seven: The Book of Yoga

7.1. The Joy of Union; the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart's Grief and Pain

021   Once more she sat behind loud hastening hooves;
022   A speed of armoured squadrons and a voice
023   Far-heard of chariots bore her from her home.
024   A couchant earth wakened in its dumb muse
025   Looked up at her from a vast indolence:

074   Arrived in that rough-hewn homestead they gave,
075   Questioning no more the strangeness of her fate,
076   Their pride and loved one to the great blind king,
077   A regal pillar of fallen mightiness
078   And the stately care-worn woman once a queen
079   Who now hoped nothing for herself from life,
080   But all things only hoped for her one child,
. . .
094   They parted from her with pain-fraught burdened hearts
. . .
098   Helpless against the choice of Savitri's heart
099   They left her to her rapture and her doom

201   A worshipped empress all once vied to serve,
202   She made herself the diligent serf of all,
203   Nor spared the labour of broom and jar and well,
204   Or close gentle tending or to heap the fire
205   Of altar and kitchen, no slight task allowed
206   To others that her woman's strength might do.

253   But Satyavan sometimes half understood,
. . .
256   The unplumbed abyss of her deep passionate want.
. . .
288   Yet ever they grew into each other more
289   Until it seemed no power could rend apart,
290   Since even the body's walls could not divide.
291   For when he wandered in the forest, oft
292   Her conscious spirit walked with him and knew
293   His actions as if in herself he moved;
294   He, less aware, thrilled with her from afar.

7.2. The Parable of the Search for the Soul

008   Above her brows where will and knowledge meet
009   A mighty Voice invaded mortal space.
. . .
015   As the Voice touched, her body became a stark
016   And rigid golden statue of motionless trance,
017   A stone of God lit by an amethyst soul.
. . .
019   Her heart listened to its slow measured beats,
. . .
021   "Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth,
. . .
024   O spirit, O immortal energy,
025   If 'twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart
026   Or with hard tearless eyes await thy doom?
027   Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death."

028   But Savitri's heart replied in the dim night:
. . .
045   Why should I strive with earth's unyielding laws
046   Or stave off death's inevitable hour?
047   This surely is best to pactise with my fate
048   And follow close behind my lover's steps
049   And pass through night from twilight to the sun
050   Across the tenebrous river that divides
051   The adjoining parishes of earth and heaven.
. . .
056   The Voice replied: "Is this enough, O spirit?
057   And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows
058   The work was left undone for which it came?

076   Then Savitri's heart fell mute, it spoke no word.
. . .
081   A Power within her answered the still Voice:
082   "I am thy portion here charged with thy work,
083   As thou myself seated for ever above,
084   Speak to my depths, O great and deathless Voice,
085   Command, for I am here to do thy will."

086   The Voice replied: "Remember why thou cam'st:
087   Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,
. . .
095   In the enormous emptiness of thy mind
096   Thou shalt see the Eternal's body in the world,
097   Know him in every voice heard by thy soul,
. . .
103   Then shalt thou harbour my force and conquer Death."
104   Then Savitri by her doomed husband sat,
105   Still rigid in her golden motionless pose,
106   A statue of the fire of the inner sun.
. . .
112   She looked into herself and sought for her soul.

7.3. The Entry into the Inner Countries

031   Then Savitri surged out of her body's wall
032   And stood a little span outside herself
. . .
036   At the dim portal of the inner life
. . .
043   A formidable voice cried from within:
044   "Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die."
. . .
046   The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose,
. . .
049   And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared
050   And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear
051   And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.
052   Unshaken her will pressed on the rigid bars:
. . .
055   Her being entered into the inner worlds.

064   Across a perilous border line she passed
065   Where Life dips into the subconscient dusk
066   Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind,
067   Aswarm with elemental entities
068   And fluttering shapes of vague half-bodied thought
069   And crude beginnings of incontinent force.
. . .
114   This state now threatened, this she pushed from her.

130   Approaching loomed a giant head of Life
131   Ungoverned by mind or soul, subconscient, vast.

256   Then journeying forward through the self's wide hush
257   She came into a brilliant ordered Space.
258   There Life dwelt parked in an armed tranquillity;
259   A chain was on her strong insurgent heart.
. . .
371   There one stood forth who bore authority
372   On an important brow and held a rod;
. . .
375   His sentences savoured the oracle.
376   "Traveller or pilgrim of the inner world,
. . .
379   O aspirant to the perfect way of life,
380   Here find it; rest from search and live at peace.

397   Savitri replied casting into his world
398   Sight's deep release, the heart's questioning inner voice:
. . .
401   "Happy are they who in this chaos of things,
402   This coming and going of the feet of Time,
403   Can find the single Truth, the eternal Law:
. . .
409   Happiest who stand on faith as on a rock.
410   But I must pass leaving the ended search,
411   Truth's rounded outcome firm, immutable
412   And this harmonic building of world-fact,
413   This ordered knowledge of apparent things.
414   Here I can stay not, for I seek my soul."

415   None answered in that bright contented world,
. . .
419   But some murmured, passers-by from kindred spheres:
420   Each by his credo judged the thought she spoke.
421   "Who then is this who knows not that the soul
422   Is a least gland or a secretion's fault
. . .
429   But others, "Nay, it is her spirit she seeks.
. . .
433   But none has touched its limbs or seen its face.
. . .
440   Another with mystic and unsatisfied eyes
441   Who loved his slain belief and mourned its death,
442   "Is there one left who seeks for a Beyond?
443   Can still the path be found, opened the gate?"

444   So she fared on across her silent self.
445   To a road she came thronged with an ardent crowd
. . .
451   Guests from the cavern of the secret soul.
. . .
461   And Savitri mingling in that glorious crowd,
. . .
463   Longed once to hasten like them to save God's world;
. . .
471   Outstretching her hands to stay the throng she cried:
472   "O happy company of luminous gods,
473   Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread,-
. . .
475   To find the birthplace of the occult Fire
476   And the deep mansion of my secret soul."

477   One answered pointing to a silence dim
478   On a remote extremity of sleep
479   In some far background of the inner world.
480   "O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come.
. . .
491   Follow the world's winding highway to its source.
492   There in the silence few have ever reached,
493   Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
494   And the deep cavern of thy secret soul."

495   Then Savitri following the great winding road
496   Came where it dwindled into a narrow path
497   Trod only by rare wounded pilgrim feet.
498   A few bright forms emerged from unknown depths
499   And looked at her with calm immortal eyes.
500   There was no sound to break the brooding hush;
501   One felt the silent nearness of the soul.

7.4. The Triple Soul-Forces

001   Here from a low and prone and listless ground
002   The passion of the first ascent began;
. . .
004   A Woman sat in a pale lustrous robe.
. . .
016   The Mother of the seven sorrows bore
017   The seven stabs that pierced her bleeding heart:
. . .
025   In soft sweet training words slowly she spoke:
026   "O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.
027   To share the suffering of the world I came,
028   I draw my children's pangs into my breast.
. . .
087   I am the hope that looks towards my God,
088   My God who never came to me till now;
089   His voice I hear that ever says `I come':
090   I know that one day he shall come at last."

091   She ceased, and like an echo from below
092   Answering her pathos of divine complaint
093   A voice of wrath took up the dire refrain,
. . .
097   "I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
098   Who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe;
099   To enjoy my agony God built the earth,
100   My passion he has made his drama's theme.
. . .
153   I am the doer of demoniac deeds;
154   I was made for evil, evil is my lot;
. . .
157   What Nature made me, that I must remain.

159   And Savitri heard the voice, the echo heard
160   And turning to her being of pity spoke:
161   "Madonna of suffering, Mother of grief divine,
162   Thou art a portion of my soul put forth
163   To bear the unbearable sorrow of the world.
. . .
167   But thine is the power to solace, not to save.
168   One day I will return, a bringer of strength,
169   And make thee drink from the Eternal's cup;

178   On passed she in her spirit's upward route.
. . .
184   A Woman sat in gold and purple sheen,
185   Armed with the trident and the thunderbolt,
186   Her feet upon a couchant lion's back.

212   Aspired the harmony of her puissant voice:
213   "O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.
. . .
236   I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,
237   And Lakshmi, queen of the fair and fortunate;
238   I wear the face of Kali when I kill,
239   I trample the corpses of the demon hordes.
. . .
276   I shall hear the silver swing of heaven's gates
277   When God comes out to meet the soul of the world."

278   She spoke and from the lower human world
279   An answer, a warped echo met her speech;
. . .
305   The voice rose up and smote some inner sun.
306   "I am the heir of the forces of the earth,
307   Slowly I make good my right to my estate;
. . .
381   When earth is mastered, I shall conquer heaven;
382   The gods shall be my aides or menial folk,
383   No wish I harbour unfulfilled shall die:
384   Omnipotence and omniscience shall be mine."

385   And Savitri heard the voice, the warped echo heard
386   And turning to her being of power she spoke:
387   "Madonna of might, Mother of works and force,
388   Thou art a portion of my soul put forth
. . .
396   Thou hast given men strength, wisdom thou couldst not give.
397   One day I will return, a bringer of light;
398   Then will I give to thee the mirror of God;
399   Thou shalt see self and world as by him they are seen
400   Reflected in the bright pool of thy soul.

407   Ascending still her spirit's upward route
408   She came into a high and happy space,
. . .
419   Here, living centre of that vision of peace,
420   A Woman sat in clear and crystal light:
. . .
425   A low music heard became her floating voice:
426   "O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.
427   I have come down to the wounded desolate earth
428   To heal her pangs and lull her heart to rest
. . .
491   I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.

495   She spoke and from the ignorant nether plane
496   A cry, a warped echo naked and shuddering came.
. . .
536   "I am the mind of God's great ignorant world
537   Ascending to knowledge by the steps he made;
. . .
575   If God is at work, his secrets I have found.
576   But still the Cause of things is left in doubt,
. . .
580   I know not and perhaps shall never know.
. . .
616   Human I am, human let me remain
617   Till in the Inconscient I fall dumb and sleep.

625   And Savitri heard the voice, the warped answer heard
626   And turning to her being of light she spoke:
627   "Madonna of light, Mother of joy and peace,
628   Thou art a portion of my self put forth
629   To raise the spirit to its forgotten heights
630   And wake the soul by touches of the heavens.
. . .
639   Even if thou rain down intuition's rays,
640   The mind of man will think it earth's own gleam,
. . .
644   His hunger for the eternal thou must nurse
. . .
646   And bring God down into his body and life.
647   One day I will return, His hand in mine,
648   And thou shalt see the face of the Absolute.

7.5. The Finding of the Soul

001   Onward she passed seeking the soul's mystic cave.
002   At first she stepped into a night of God.
. . .
046   The face of Dawn out of mooned twilight grew.
047   Day came, priest of a sacrifice of joy
048   Into the worshipping silence of her world;
049   He carried immortal lustre as his robe,
050   Trailed heaven like a purple scarf and wore
051   As his vermilion caste-mark a red sun.

067   An awful dimness wrapped the great rock-doors
068   Carved in the massive stone of Matter's trance.
069   Two golden serpents round the lintel curled,
070   Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength,
071   Looked out with wisdom's deep and luminous eyes.
072   An eagle covered it with wide conquering wings:
073   Flames of self-lost immobile reverie,
074   Doves crowded the grey musing cornices
075   Like sculptured postures of white-bosomed peace.

076   Across the threshold's sleep she entered in
077   And found herself amid great figures of gods
078   Conscious in stone and living without breath,
079   Watching with fixed regard the soul of man,
080   Executive figures of the cosmic self,
081   World-symbols of immutable potency.

102   There was no step of breathing men, no sound,
103   Only the living nearness of the soul.
. . .
115   As thus she passed in that mysterious place
116   Through room and room, through door and rock-hewn door,
117   She felt herself made one with all she saw.
118   A sealed identity within her woke;
119   She knew herself the Beloved of the Supreme:
120   These Gods and Goddesses were he and she:
. . .
127   The Adorer and Adored self-lost and one.

128   In the last chamber on a golden seat
129   One sat whose shape no vision could define;
130   Only one felt the world's unattainable fount,
131   A Power of which she was a straying Force,
132   An invisible Beauty, goal of the world's desire,
133   A Sun of which all knowledge is a beam,
134   A Greatness without whom no life could be.

135   Thence all departed into silent self,
136   And all became formless and pure and bare.
137   Then through a tunnel dug in the last rock
138   She came out where there shone a deathless sun.
139   A house was there all made of flame and light
140   And crossing a wall of doorless living fire
141   There suddenly she met her secret soul.

142   A being stood immortal in transience,
143   Deathless dallying with momentary things,
. . .
155   She had come into the mortal body's room
. . .
165   But since she knows the toil of mind and life
166   As a mother feels and shares her children's lives,
167   She puts forth a small portion of herself,
168   A being no bigger than the thumb of man
169   Into a hidden region of the heart
170   To face the pang and to forget the bliss,
171   To share the suffering and endure earth's wounds
172   And labour mid the labour of the stars.

196   Here in this chamber of flame and light they met;
197   They looked upon each other, knew themselves,
198   The secret deity and its human part,
199   The calm immortal and the struggling soul.
200   Then with a magic transformation's speed
201   They rushed into each other and grew one.

202   Once more she was human upon earthly soil
203   In the muttering night amid the rain-swept woods
204   And the rude cottage where she sat in trance:
. . .
207   But now the half-opened lotus bud of her heart
208   Had bloomed and stood disclosed to the earthly ray;
209   In an image shone revealed her secret soul.
. . .
212   In its deep lotus home her being sat
213   As if on concentration's marble seat,
214   Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds
215   To make this earthly tenement her house.

216   As in a flash from a supernal light,
217   A living image of the original Power,
218   A face, a form came down into her heart
219   And made of it its temple and pure abode.
. . .
223   Out of the Inconscient's soulless mindless night
224   A flaming Serpent rose released from sleep.
225   It rose billowing its coils and stood erect
226   And climbing mightily, stormily on its way
227   It touched her centres with its flaming mouth;
228   As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep,
229   They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss.
230   Then at the crown it joined the Eternal's space.

247   All underwent a high celestial change:
248   Breaking the black Inconscient's blind mute wall,
. . .
251   Each part of the being trembling with delight
252   Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness
. . .
255   In the country of the lotus of the head
. . .
257   In the castle of the lotus twixt the brows
. . .
259   In the passage of the lotus of the throat
. . .
278   In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart
. . .
282   In the navel lotus' broad imperial range
. . .
286   In the narrow nether centre's petty parts
. . .
290   In the deep place where once the Serpent slept,
. . .
293   A firm ground was made for Heaven's descending might.

7.6. Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute

035   Above the cherished head of Satyavan
036   She saw not now Fate's dark and lethal orb;
037   A golden circle round a mystic sun
038   Disclosed to her new-born predicting sight
039   The cyclic rondure of a sovereign life.

065   Once as she sat in deep felicitous muse,
. . .
068   An abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart.
. . .
074   A formless Dread with shapeless endless wings
075   Filling the universe with its dangerous breath,
076   A denser darkness than the Night could bear,
077   Enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth.

141   Then from the heights a greater Voice came down,
142   The Word that touches the heart and finds the soul,
143   The voice of Light after the voice of Night:
. . .
146   "O soul, bare not thy kingdom to the foe;
. . .
159   That all in thee may reach its absolute.
. . .
184   God must be born on earth and be as man
185   That man being human may grow even as God.
. . .
219   Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
220   Annul thyself that only God may be."

221   Thus spoke the mighty and uplifting Voice,
222   And Savitri heard; she bowed her head and mused
223   Plunging her deep regard into herself
224   In her soul's privacy in the silent Night.

289   Her body's thoughts climbed from her conscious limbs
290   And carried their yearnings to its mystic crown
291   Where Nature's murmurs meet the Ineffable.

405   Only sometimes small thoughts arose and fell
406   Like quiet waves upon a silent sea
407   Or ripples passing over a lonely pool
408   When a stray stone disturbs its dreaming rest.

458   Then all grew still, nothing moved any more:
459   Immobile, self-rapt, timeless, solitary
460   A silent spirit pervaded silent Space.

607   Unutterably effaced, no one and null,
608   A vanishing vestige like a violet trace,
609   A faint record merely of a self now past,
610   She was a point in the unknowable.

7.7. The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness

059   Yet all was not extinct in this deep loss;
060   The being travelled not towards nothingness.
061   There was some high surpassing Secrecy,
062   And when she sat alone with Satyavan,
063   Her moveless mind with his that searched and strove,
064   In the hush of the profound and intimate night
065   She turned to the face of a veiled voiceless Truth
066   Hid in the dumb recesses of the heart
067   Or waiting beyond the last peak climbed by Thought,-

127   But now she sat by sleeping Satyavan,
128   Awake within, and the enormous Night
129   Surrounded her with the Unknowable's vast.

210   Out of the infinitudes all came to her,
211   Into the infinitudes sentient she spread,
212   Infinity was her own natural home.
213   Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere,
214   The distant constellations wheeled round her;
215   Earth saw her born, all worlds were her colonies,
216   The greater worlds of life and mind were hers;
217   All Nature reproduced her in its lines,
218   Its movements were large copies of her own.
219   She was the single self of all these selves,
220   She was in them and they were all in her.

Book Eight: The Book of Death

8.3. Death in the Forest

012   Then silently she rose and, service done,
013   Bowed down to the great goddess simply carved
014   By Satyavan upon a forest stone.
015   What prayer she breathed her soul and Durga knew.
016   Perhaps she felt in the dim forest huge
017   The infinite Mother watching over her child,
018   Perhaps the shrouded Voice spoke some still word.

019   At last she came to the pale mother queen.
020   She spoke but with guarded lips and tranquil face
. . .
027   And forced upon her speech an outward peace.
028   "One year that I have lived with Satyavan
. . .
032   I have not gone into the silences
033   Of this great woodland that enringed my thoughts
. . .
036   Now has a strong desire seized all my heart
037   To go with Satyavan holding his hand
. . .
043   Release me now and let my heart have rest."
044   She answered: "Do as thy wise mind desires,
045   O calm child-sovereign with the eyes that rule.

051   Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew
052   Went with linked hands into that solemn world
053   Where beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream,
054   Where Nature's mystic silence could be felt
055   Communing with the secrecy of God.

083   But Satyavan had paused. He meant to finish
084   His labour here that happy, linked, uncaring
085   They two might wander free in the green deep
086   Primaeval mystery of the forest's heart.
. . .
092   Wordless but near she watched, no turn to lose
093   Of the bright face and body which she loved.
. . .
098   But Satyavan wielded a joyous axe.
099   He sang high snatches of a sage's chant

105   But as he worked, his doom upon him came.
. . .
114  . . . Now the great woodsman
115   Hewed at him and his labour ceased: lifting
116   His arm he flung away the poignant axe
117   Far from him like an instrument of pain.
118   She came to him in silent anguish and clasped,
119   And he cried to her, "Savitri, a pang
120   Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axe
121   Were piercing it and not the living branch.

127   Then Savitri sat under branches wide,
. . .
131   She guarded him in her bosom and strove to soothe
132   His anguished brow and body with her hands.
. . .
144   He cried out in a clinging last despair,
145   "Savitri, Savitri, O Savitri,
146   Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die."

147   And even as her pallid lips pressed his,
148   His failed, losing last sweetness of response;
149   His cheek pressed down her golden arm. She sought
150   His mouth still with her living mouth, as if
151   She could persuade his soul back with her kiss;
152   Then grew aware they were no more alone.
153   Something had come there conscious, vast and dire.
. . .
176   She knew that visible Death was standing there
177   And Satyavan had passed from her embrace.

Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night

9.1. Towards the Black Void

016   Then suddenly there came on her the change
017   Which in tremendous moments of our lives
018   Can overtake sometimes the human soul
019   And hold it up towards its luminous source.
020   The veil is torn, the thinker is no more:
021   Only the spirit sees and all is known.
022   Then a calm Power seated above our brows
023   Is seen, unshaken by our thoughts and deeds,
024   Its stillness bears the voices of the world:
025   Immobile, it moves Nature, looks on life.
. . .
047   This in a moment's depths was born in her.

054   Like one who looks up to far heights she saw,
055   Ancient and strong as on a windless summit
056   Above her where she had worked in her lone mind
057   Labouring apart in a sole tower of self,
058   The source of all which she had seemed or wrought,
. . .
073   That mightiness assumed a symbol form:
074   Her being's spaces quivered with its touch,
075   It covered her as with immortal wings;

084   All in her mated with that mighty hour,
085   As if the last remnant had been slain by Death
086   Of the humanity that once was hers.
. . .
107   A moment yet she lingered motionless
108   And looked down on the dead man at her feet;

109   Then like a tree recovering from a wind
110   She raised her noble head; fronting her gaze
111   Something stood there, unearthly, sombre, grand,
112   A limitless denial of all being
113   That wore the terror and wonder of a shape.

130   The two opposed each other with their eyes,
131   Woman and universal god: around her,
132   Piling their void unbearable loneliness
133   Upon her mighty uncompanioned soul,
134   Many inhuman solitudes came close.

179   The dim and awful godhead rose erect
180   From his brief stooping to his touch on earth,
181   And, like a dream that wakes out of a dream,
182   Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,
183   Another luminous Satyavan arose,
184   Starting upright from the recumbent earth
185   As if someone over viewless borders stepped
186   Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds.

202   Between two realms he stood, not wavering,
203   But fixed in quiet strong expectancy,
204   Like one who, sightless, listens for a command.
205   So were they immobile on that earthly field,
206   Powers not of earth, though one in human clay.
. . .
212   Luminous he moved away; behind him Death

261   Into a deep and unfamiliar air
262   Enormous, windless, without stir or sound
263   They seemed to enlarge away, drawn by some wide
264   Pale distance, from the warm control of earth
265   And her grown far: now, now they would escape.
266   Then flaming from her body's nest alarmed
267   Her violent spirit soared at Satyavan.

321   Enigma of the Inconscient's sculptural sleep,
322   Symbols of the approach to darkness old
323   And monuments of her titanic reign,

331   Then, to that chill sere heavy line arrived
332   Where his feet touched the shadowy marches' brink,
333   Turning arrested luminous Satyavan
334   Looked back with his wonderful eyes at Savitri.
335   But Death pealed forth his vast abysmal cry:
336   "O mortal, turn back to thy transient kind;
337   Aspire not to accompany Death to his home,
338   As if thy breath could live where Time must die.

369   Still like a statue on its pedestal,
370   Lone in the silence and to vastness bared,
371   Against midnight's dumb abysses piled in front
372   A columned shaft of fire and light she rose.

9.2. The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness

016   The Woman first affronted the Abyss
017   Daring to journey through the eternal Night.
018   Armoured with light she advanced her foot to plunge
019   Into the dread and hueless vacancy;

132   Once more she heard the treading of a god,
133   And out of the dumb darkness Satyavan,
134   Her husband, grew into a luminous shade.
. . .
138   Death missioned to the night his lethal call.
139   "This is my silent dark immensity,
. . .
142   Entombing the vanity of life's desires.
143   Hast thou beheld thy source, O transient heart,
144   And known from what the dream thou art was made?

222   At last she spoke; her voice was heard by Night:
223   "I bow not to thee, O huge mask of death,
224   Black lie of night to the cowed soul of man,
. . .
227   Conscious of immortality I walk.
. . .
247   First I demand whatever Satyavan,
248   My husband, waking in the forest's charm
249   Out of his long pure childhood's lonely dreams,
250   Desired and had not for his beautiful life.
251   Give, if thou must, or, if thou canst, refuse."

252   Death bowed his head in scornful cold assent,
. . .
255   Uplifting his disastrous voice he spoke:
. . .
257   I yield to his blind father's longing heart
258   Kingdom and power and friends and greatness lost
259   And royal trappings for his peaceful age,
260   The pallid pomps of man's declining days,
261   The silvered decadent glories of life's fall.

275   But Savitri answered the disdainful Shade:
276   "World-spirit, I was thy equal spirit born.
. . .
278   I am immortal in my mortality.
279   I tremble not before the immobile gaze
280   Of the unchanging marble hierarchies
281   That look with the stone eyes of Law and Fate.
282   My soul can meet them with its living fire.
. . .
296   Wherever thou leadst his soul I shall pursue."

308   Against the Woman's boundless heart arose
309   The almighty cry of universal Death.
310   "Hast thou god-wings or feet that tread my stars,
311   Frail creature with the courage that aspires,
312   Forgetting thy bounds of thought, thy mortal role?
. . .
340   I will take from thee the black eternal grip:
341   Clasping in thy heart thy fate's exiguous dole
342   Depart in peace, if peace for man is just."

343   But Savitri answered meeting scorn with scorn,
344   The mortal woman to the dreadful Lord:
345   "Who is this God imagined by thy night,
346   Contemptuously creating worlds disdained,
347   Who made for vanity the brilliant stars?
348   Not he who has reared his temple in my thoughts
349   And made his sacred floor my human heart.
350   My God is will and triumphs in his paths,
351   My God is love and sweetly suffers all.
. . .
360   Love's golden wings have power to fan thy void:
361   The eyes of love gaze starlike through death's night,
362   The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds.

371   Once more a Thought, a Word in the void arose
372   And Death made answer to the human soul:
. . .
384   Wilt thou claim immortality, O heart,
385   Crying against the eternal witnesses
386   That thou and he are endless powers and last?
387   Death only lasts and the inconscient Void.
. . .
394   All from my depths are born, they live by death;
395   All to my depths return and are no more.
. . .
403   I, Death, am the one refuge of thy soul.

439   But Savitri replied to the dread Voice:
440   "O Death, who reasonest, I reason not,
441   Reason that scans and breaks, but cannot build
442   Or builds in vain because she doubts her work.
443   I am, I love, I see, I act, I will."
444   Death answered her, one deep surrounding cry:
445   "Know also. Knowing, thou shalt cease to love
. . .
449   But Savitri replied for man to Death:
450   "When I have loved for ever, I shall know.
451   Love in me knows the truth all changings mask.

466   Like one disdaining violent helpless words
467   From victim lips Death answered not again.
468   He stood in silence and in darkness wrapped,
. . .
471   Half-seen in clouds appeared a sombre face;
472   Night's dusk tiara was his matted hair,
473   The ashes of the pyre his forehead's sign.

477   Around her rolled the shuddering waste of gloom,
478   Its swallowing emptiness and joyless death
479   Resentful of her thought and life and love.
480   Through the long fading night by her compelled,
481   Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path,
482   Phantasmal in the dimness moved the three.