Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, Book XII Epilogue, pp. 721-724
Transcript
- 0:01Now the dusk shadowy trees stood close around, like dreaming
- 0:05spirits and delaying night. The grey eyed pence of evening
- 0:11heard their steps, and from all points the cries and movements
- 0:15came of the four footed Wanderers of the night
- 0:18approaching. Then a human rumor rose, long
- 0:23alien to their solitary days, invaded the charmed wilderness
- 0:28of leaves once sacred to secluded loneliness, With
- 0:33violent breaking of its virgin sleep through the screen dusk it
- 0:39deepened still, and there neared floating many voices and the
- 0:45sound of many feet, till on their sight broke in as if a
- 0:49colored wave upon the eye. The brilliant, strenuous,
- 0:53crowded days of man, topped by a flaring multitude of lights, A
- 1:00great resplendent company arrived.
- 1:03Life in its ordered tumult wavering came, bringing its
- 1:07streams of unknown faces thronged with gold fringed
- 1:11headdresses, gold broidered robes glittering of ornaments
- 1:16fluttering of hems. Hundreds of hands parted the
- 1:20forest boughs, hundreds of eyes searched the entangled glades
- 1:25calm white clad priests, their grave eyed sweetness brought
- 1:30strong warriors in their glorious armor shown the proud
- 1:35hoof steeds came trampling through the wood in front.
- 1:40King Dilmatsena walked no more blind, faltering limbed, but his
- 1:46far questing eyes, restored to all their confidence in light,
- 1:52took seeingly this imaged outer world.
- 1:55Firmly he trod with monarch step the soil by him that Queen and
- 2:01Mother's anxious face came change from its habitual
- 2:05burdened look, which in its drooping strength of tired toil
- 2:11had borne the fallen life of those she loved.
- 2:15Her patient paleness wore a pensive glow, like evenings
- 2:20subdued gaze of gathered light departing which foresees
- 2:26sunrise, her child sinking in quiet splendors of her sky.
- 2:33She lives a while to muse upon that hope, the brilliance of her
- 2:37rich receding gleam, a thoughtful prophecy of lyric
- 2:42dawn. Her eyes were first to find her
- 2:46children's forms, but at the vision of the beautiful twain
- 2:51the air awoke perturbed with scaling cries, and the swift
- 2:56parents hurrying to their child, their cause of life now who had
- 3:01given him breath, possessed him with their arms.
- 3:05Then tenderly cried Dyomatsena chiding Satyavan.
- 3:10The fortunate gods have looked on me to day a Kingdom seeking
- 3:15came and heavens rays. But where wast thou?
- 3:19Thou hast tormented gladness with fierce dull shadow, O my
- 3:23child, my life. What danger kept thee for the
- 3:27darkening woods? Or how could pleasure in her
- 3:30ways forget that useless orbs without thee Are my eyes, which
- 3:36only for thy sake rejoice at light.
- 3:40Not like thyself was this done, Savitri, who let's not back thy
- 3:45husband to our arms, knowing with him beside me only his
- 3:49taste in food and for his touch. Evening and morn I live content
- 3:54with my remaining days. But Satyavan replied with
- 3:59smiling lips. Lay all on her, she is the cause
- 4:05of all. With her enchantments she has
- 4:08twined me round. Behold, at noon, leaving this
- 4:13House of clay, I wandered in far off eternities, yet still a
- 4:20captive. In her golden hands I tread your
- 4:23little hillock called Green earth, And in the moments of
- 4:27your transient son live glad among the busy works of men.
- 4:33Then all eyes turned their wondering looks where stood a
- 4:37deepening redder gold upon her cheeks.
- 4:41With lowered lids the noble lovely child and one consenting
- 4:46thought moved every breast. What gleaming marvel of the
- 4:51earth or skies stands silently by human Satyavan to mark a
- 4:56brilliance in the dusk of Eve? If this is she of whom the world
- 5:01has heard, wonder no more at any happy change, Each easy miracle
- 5:07of Felicity, of her transmuting heart.
- 5:11The alchemy is Then one spoke there who seemed to priest and
- 5:16sage, O woman, soul, what light, what power revealed working the
- 5:23rapid marvels of this day opens for us by thee a happier age.
- 5:30Her lashes fluttering upwards, gathered into a vision which had
- 5:34scanned immortal things, rejoicing human forms for their
- 5:39delight. They claim for their deep,
- 5:42childlike motherhood, the life of all these souls to be her
- 5:46life. Then falling veiled the light.
- 5:51Lo, she replied, awaken to the meaning of my heart, that to
- 5:58feel love and oneness is to live.
- 6:02And this, the magic of our golden change, is all the truth
- 6:07I know or seek. Osage, wondering at her and her
- 6:13too luminous words. Westward they turned in the fast
- 6:19gathering night.