Canto Three The Call to the Quest A morn that seemed a new creation's front, Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies, Came, burdened with a beauty moved and strange Out of the changeless origin of things. An ancient longing struck again new roots. The air drank deep of unfulfilled desire; The high trees trembled with a wandering wind Like souls that quiver at the approach of joy, And in a bosom of green secrecy For ever of its one love-note untired A lyric coïl cried among the leaves. Awa

Bibliographical note savitri first appeared in sections in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual 1946 and 1947, the quarterly Advent 1946 and 1947, and Sri Aurobindo Circle Annual 1947. These sections were also made available simultaneously in fascicles Canto-wise. The fascicles covered the first four Cantos of Book 1 and Book 3. The fifteen Cantos of Book 2 were published in book-form in two parts, Cantos 1-6 and Cantos 7-15, in 1947 and 1948 respectively. savitri, Part I, comprising three Books, extensively revised and enlarged, was issued in a single volume in 1950. Part II, comprising Books 4 to 8, and Part III, comprising Books 9 to 12, were published as

Canto Two The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal Then pealed the calm inexorable voice: Abolishing hope, cancelling life's golden truths, Fatal its accents smote the trembling air. That lovely world swam thin and frail, most like Some pearly evanescent farewell gleam On the faint verge of dusk in moonless eves. “Prisoner of Nature, many-visioned spirit, Thought's creature in the ideal's realm enjoying Thy unsubstantial immortality The subtle marvellous mind of man has feigned, This is the world from which thy yearnings came. When it would build eternity from the dust, Man's thought

PART TWO (Book IV to XII) Book Four The Book of Birth and Quest Canto One The Birth and Childhood of the Flame A maenad of the cycles of desire Around a Light she must not dare to touch, Hastening towards a far-off unknown goal Earth followed the endless journey of the Sun. A mind but half-awake in the swing of the void On the bosom of Inconscience dreamed out life And bore this finite world of thought and deed Across the immobile trance of the Infinite. A vast immutable silen

Canto Four The Quest The world-ways opened before Savitri. At first a strangeness of new brilliant scenes Peopled her mind and kept her body's gaze. But as she moved across the changing earth A deeper consciousness welled up in her: A citizen of many scenes and climes, Each soil and country it has made its home; It took all clans and peoples for her own, Till the whole destiny of mankind was hers. These unfamiliar spaces on her way Were known and neighbours to a sense within; Landscapes recurred like lo

Canto Four The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real There came a slope that slowly downward sank; It slipped towards a stumbling grey descent. The dim-heart marvel of the ideal was lost; Its crowding wonder of bright delicate dreams And vague half-limned sublimities she had left: Thought fell towards lower levels; hard and tense It passioned for some crude reality. The twilight floated still but changed its hues And heavily swathed a less delightful dream; It settled in tired masses on the air; Its symbol colours tuned with duller reds And almost seemed a lurid mist of day. A straining taut a

Canto Seven* In the little hermitage in the forest's heart, In the sunlight and the moonlight and the dark The daily human life went plodding on Even as before with its small unchanging works And its spare outward body of routine And happy quiet of ascetic peace. The old beauty smiled of the terrestrial scene; She too was her old gracious self to men. The Ancient Mother clutched her child to her breast Pressing her close in her environing arms, As if earth ever the same could for ever keep The living spirit and body in her clasp, As if death were not there nor end nor change. Accustomed only to read outward signs None s

Canto Six Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute A calm slow sun looked down from tranquil heavens. A routed sullen rearguard of retreat, The last rains had fled murmuring across the woods Or failed, a sibilant whisper mid the leaves, And the great blue enchantment of the sky Recovered the deep rapture of its smile. Its mellow splendour unstressed by storm-licked heats Found room for a luxury of warm mild days, The night's gold treasure of autumnal moons Came floating shipped through ripples of fairy air. And Savitri's life was glad, fulfilled like earth's;

Book Six The Book of Fate Canto One The Word of Fate In silent bounds bordering the mortal's plane Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise Came chanting through the large and lustrous air. Attracted by the golden summer-earth That lay beneath him like a glowing bowl Tilted upon a table of the Gods, Turning as if moved round by an unseen hand To catch the warmth and blaze of a small sun, He passed from the immortal's happy paths To a world of toil and quest and grief and

Canto Two Satyavan All she remembered on this day of Fate, The road that hazarded not the solemn depths But turned away to flee to human homes, The wilderness with its mighty monotone, The morning like a lustrous seer above, The passion of the summits lost in heaven, The titan murmur of the endless woods. As if a wicket-gate to joy were there Ringed in with voiceless hint and magic sign, Upon the margin of an unknown world Reclined the curve of a sun-held recess; Groves with strange flowers like eyes