Aurobindo 136 Savitri Book 9

An appreciation on Savitri-

Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night

Canto Two: The Journey in Eternal Night

and the Voice of the Darkness

Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

But Savitri replied to the dread Voice:

'O Death, who reasonest, I reason not,

Reason that scans and breaks, but cannot build

Or builds in vain because she doubts her work.

I am, I love, I see, I act, I will.'

Her extraordinary confidence inviolable

Her extraordinary courage unbeatable

A lesson for us to shatter Death

Death answered her, one deep surrounding cry:

'Know also. Knowing, thou shalt cease to love

And cease to will, delivered from thy heart.

So shalt thou rest for ever and be still,

Consenting to the impermanence of things.'

But Savitri replied for man to Death:

'When I have loved for ever, I shall know.Line450to

Dowered with a mind and heart to conquer thee.'263

Savitri was exceptionally a god-child

No wonder so was she determined to win

No doubt so was she marching on victory

'I know the calm Transcendent bears the world,

The veiled Inhabitant, the silent Lord:

I feel his secret act, his intimate fire;

I hear the murmur of the cosmic Voice.

I know my coming was a wave from God.'

So were her words for Death to be silent

'Like one disdaining violent helpless words

From victim lips Death answered not again.'

'Through the long fading night by her compelled,

Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path,

Phantasmal in the dimness moved the three.'.........

............My consciousness this moment,

O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights

Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation

My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine

May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise

Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune

End of Canto Two

End of Book Nine

To My Wife

Two Birds in a Tree

Walk