Aurobindo 135 Savitri Book 9 Poem by Indira Renganathan

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


A warning from his intense heart Death gave
'But Savitri answered the disdainful Shade: '
'World-spirit, I was thy equal spirit born.Line276 to
Wherever thou leadst his soul I shall pursue.'===296
'I tremble not before the immobile gaze'
'That look with the stone eyes of Law and Fate.
My soul can meet them with its living fire.'
'Wherever thou leadst his soul I shall pursue.'

Applaudable efforts Savitri's and her courage stupendous..
'But to her claim opposed, implacable, '
'As when the storm-haired Titan-striding sea
Throws on a swimmer its tremendous laugh
Remembering all the joy its waves have drowned,
So from the darkness of the sovereign night
Against the Woman's boundless heart arose
The almighty cry of universal Death.'

Need to write separately on thou descriptive style..
'Hast thou god-wings or feet that tread my stars, Line 310to
Depart in peace, if peace for man is just.'Line342
His obstructed job had all anger in his indignant cry..
'But Savitri answered meeting scorn with scorn, '
'Who is this God imagined by thy night, Line345 to
He shall remake thy universe, O Death.'Line 364
Wonderful answer Savitri's defining her God of Love

'What is thy hope? to what dost thou aspire? Line373 to
Then shalt thou rise into thy unmoved source.'Line438
Boasting of himself Death elucidates in extensive words
'I, Death, am He; there is no other God.
All from my depths are born, they live by death;
All to my depths return and are no more.'.....

............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 there so, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused there so be knowledge and fortune

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Note; Some more inspiring descriptive and
informative lines from Book 9 Canto 2


Page 590

Out of thy shadow give me back again
Into earth's flowering spaces Satyavan
In the sweet transiency of human limbs
To do with him my spirit's burning will.

I will bear with him the ancient Mother's load,
I will follow with him earth's path that leads to God.

All things I have built in them and I destroy.
I made the worlds my net, each joy a mesh.
A Hunger amorous of its suffering prey,
Life that devours, my image see in things.


Page 591

Blind slave of my deaf force whom I compel
To sin that I may punish, to desire
That I may scourge thee with despair and grief
And thou come bleeding to me at the last,
Thy nothingness recognised, my greatness known,
Turn nor attempt forbidden happy fields
Meant for the souls that can obey my law,
Lest in their sombre shrines thy tread awake
From their uneasy iron-hearted sleep
The Furies who avenge fulfilled desire.


Dread lest in skies where passion hoped to live,
The Unknown's lightnings start and, terrified,
Lone, sobbing, hunted by the hounds of heaven,
A wounded and forsaken soul thou flee
Through the long torture of the centuries,
Nor many lives exhaust the tireless Wrath
Hell cannot slake nor Heaven's mercy assuage.

"Who is this God imagined by thy night,
Contemptuously creating worlds disdained,
Who made for vanity the brilliant stars?

My God is will and triumphs in his paths,
My God is love and sweetly suffers all.
To him I have offered hope for sacrifice
And gave my longings as a sacrament.

Page 592

Love's golden wings have power to fan thy void:
The eyes of love gaze starlike through death's night,
The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds.

And thou, what art thou, soul, thou glorious dream
Of brief emotions made and glittering thoughts,
A thin dance of fireflies speeding through the night,
A sparkling ferment in life's sunlit mire?

Page 592&593

Death only lasts and the inconscient Void.
I only am eternal and endure.
I am the shapeless formidable Vast,
I am the emptiness that men call Space,
I am a timeless Nothingness carrying all,
I am the Illimitable, the mute Alone.

Page 593

I have made a world by my inconscient Force.
My Force is Nature that creates and slays
The hearts that hope, the limbs that long to live.

That which thou seest as thy immortal self
Is a shadowy icon of my infinite,
Is Death in thee dreaming of eternity.