Aurobindo 73 Savitri Book 4 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Four: The Book of Birth and Quest
Canto One: The Birth and Childhood of the Flame
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's


'And Winter and Dew-time laid their calm cool hands'
'Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves'
'His coming brought the magic and the spell;
'In this high signal moment of the gods'
'A lamp was lit, a sacred image made.'
'A mediating ray had touched the earth
Bridging the gulf between man's mind and God's;
Its brightness linked our transience to the Unknown.'

The secret contact broken off in Time,
A consanguinity of earth and heaven, '
'Again the mystic deep attempt began,
The daring wager of the cosmic game.
'A Mother-wisdom works in Nature's breast
To pour delight on the heart of toil and want
And press perfection on life's stumbling powers
'Impose heaven-sentience on the obscure abyss'

'She keeps her will that hopes to divinise clay;
'No victory she admits of Death or Fate.
Always she drives the soul to new attempt; '
Outlined by the pressure of this new descent
A lovelier body formed than earth had known.'
'An infant heart of the deep-caved world-plan
In cradle of divine inconscience rocked
By the universal ecstasy of the suns.'

'Some missioned Power in the half-wakened frame
Nursed a transcendent birth's dumb glorious seed'
'But soon the link of soul with form grew sure;
Flooded was the dim cave with slow conscient light,
The seed grew into a delicate marvellous bud,
The bud disclosed a great and heavenly bloom.'....

............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 4 Canto 1

Page 351

And Winter and Dew-time laid their calm cool hands
On Nature's bosom still in a half sleep
And deepened with hues of lax and mellow ease
The tranquil beauty of the waning year.

Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves
And caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp;
His advent was a fire of irised hues,
His arms were a circle of the arrival of joy.

Page 352

He made joy a willing prisoner in her breast.
His grasp was a young god's upon earth's limbs:
Changed by the passion of his divine outbreak
He made her body beautiful with his kiss.

Impatient for felicity he came,
High-fluting with the coãl's happy voice,
His peacock turban trailing on the trees;
His breath was a warm summons to delight,
The dense voluptuous azure was his gaze.

The life of the enchanted globe became
A storm of sweetness and of light and song,
A revel of colour and of ecstasy,
A hymn of rays, a litany of cries:
A strain of choral priestly music sang
And, swung on the swaying censer of the trees,
A sacrifice of perfume filled the hours.

Asocas burned in crimson spots of flame,
Pure like the breath of an unstained desire
White jasmines haunted the enamoured air,
Pale mango-blossoms fed the liquid voice
Of the love-maddened coãl, and the brown bee
Muttered in fragrance mid the honey-buds.
The sunlight was a great god's golden smile.
All Nature was at beauty's festival.

Page 353

Survivor of death and the aeonic years,
Once more with her fathomless heart she fronted Time.

Page 354

As one who has all infinity to waste,
She scatters the seed of the Eternal's strength
On a half-animate and crumbling mould,
Plants heaven's delight in the heart's passionate mire,
Pours godhead's seekings into a bare beast frame,
Hides immortality in a mask of death.