Aurobindo 128 Savitri Book 9 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Nine:The Book of Eternal Night
Canto One:Towards the Black Void
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'Assuming a spiritual wide control,
Making life's sea a mirror of heaven's sky,
The young divinity in her earthly limbs
Filled with celestial strength her mortal part.'
What a sane wording..'young divinity'!
What a ripe rendering for our easy grasping!
'There came a freedom from the heart-strings' clutch,
Now all her acts sprang from a godhead's calm.'

'Sole now she rose to meet the dreadful god.'
That mightier spirit turned its mastering gaze
On life and things, inheritor of a work
Left to it unfinished from her halting past,
When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled
And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.
'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'

'The two opposed each other with their eyes'
'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,

............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 1

Page 573

Immortal leader of her mortality,
Doer of her works and fountain of her words,
Invulnerable by Time, omnipotent,
It stood above her calm, immobile, mute.

All in her mated with that mighty hour,
As if the last remnant had been slain by Death
Of the humanity that once was hers.

Page 574

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.

around her,
Piling their void unbearable loneliness
Upon her mighty uncompanioned soul,
Many inhuman solitudes came close.