Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, Book IX The Book of Eternal Night, Canto 1 Towards the Black Void, pp. 573-577

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All in her made it with that
mighty hour, as if the last

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remnant had been slain by death
of the humanity that once was

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hers, assuming a spiritual wide
control, making life see a

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mirror of heaven's sky.
The young divinity in her

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earthly limbs filled with
celestial strength, her mortal

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part.
Over was the haunted pain, the

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rending fear.
Her grief had passed away.

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Her mind was still, her heart
beat quietly with a sovereign

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force.
There came a freedom from the

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heartstring's clutch.
Now all her acts sprang from a

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godhead's calm.
Calmly she laid upon the forest

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soil the dead who still reposed
upon her breast, and bore to

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turn away from the dead form
soul.

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Now she rose to meet the
dreadful God.

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That mightier spirit turned its
mastering gaze on life and

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things inheritor of a work left
to it unfinished from her

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halting past.
When yet the mind, a passionate

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learner, toiled and I'll shaped
instruments were crudely moved,

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transcended.
Now was the poor human rule, a

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sovereign power?
Was there a God like Will?

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A moment, yet she lingered
motionless, and looked down on

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the dead man at her feet.
Then, like a tree recovering

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from a wind, she raised her
noble head.

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Fronting her gaze, something
stood there, unearthly, sombre,

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grand, a limitless denial of all
being that wore the terror and

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wonder of a shape.
In its appalling eyes.

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The tenebrous form bore the deep
pity of destroying gods.

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A sorrowful irony curved the
dreadful lips that speak the

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word of doom.
Eternal night in the dire beauty

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of an immortal face, pitying a
rose, receiving all that lives

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forever into its fathomless
heart.

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Refuge of creatures from their
anguish and world pain.

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His shape was nothing is made
real, His limbs were monuments

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of transience, and beneath brows
of unwearying calm, large God

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like lids silent beheld the
writhing serpent life unmoved.

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Their timeless, wide, unchanging
gaze had seen the unprofitable

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cycles past, survived the
passing of unnumbered stars and

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sheltered still the same
immutable orbs.

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The two opposed each other with
their eyes, woman and universal

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God around her, piling their
void, unbearable loneliness upon

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her mighty uncompanioned soul.
Many inhuman solitudes came

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close, vacant eternities
forbidding hope laid upon her

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their huge and lifeless look,
and to her ears silencing

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earthly sounds.
A sad and formidable voice

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arose, which seemed the whole
adverse worlds.

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Unclasp it cried thy passionate
influence, and relax, O slave of

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nature, changing tool of
changeless law, Who vainly

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writhes rebellion to my yoke Thy
elemental grasp.

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Weep and forget, Entomb thy
passion in its living grave.

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Leave now the once loved spirits
abandoned robe.

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Pass, lonely, back to thy vain
life on earth.

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It ceased.
She moved not, and it spoke

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again, lowering its mighty key
to human chords.

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Yet a dread cry behind the
uttered sounds, echoing all

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sadness and immortal scorn,
moaned like a hunger of far

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wandering waves.
Wilt thou forever keep thy

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passion at hold thyself a
creature doomed like him to

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pass, denying his soul Death's
calm and silent rest.

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Relax thy grasp.
This body is earth's and thine.

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His spirit now belongs to a
greater power.

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Woman, thy husband suffers.
Savitri drew back her heart's

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forest that clasped his body
still where from her lap

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renounced on the smooth grass
softly.

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It lay as often before in sleep,
when from their couch she rose

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in the white dawn, called by her
daily tasks.

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Now, too, as if called, she rose
and stood gathered in lonely

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strength, like one who drops his
mantle for a race and waits, the

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signal motionlessly swift, She
knew not to what course her

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spirit Above, on the crypt
summit of her secret form, like

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one left Sentinel on a mountain
Crest, a fiery footed splendor,

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poison winged, watched, flaming
silent with her voiceless soul,

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like a still sail upon a
windless sea, White, passionless

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it road and anchored might
waiting.

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What far ridged impulse should
arise out of the eternal depths,

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and cast its surge?
Then death.

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The king lean boundless down, as
leans night over tired lands,

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When evening pails and fading
gleams breakdown the horizons

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walls.
Nor yet the dust grows Mystic

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with the moon.
The dim and awful godhead rose

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erect from his brief, stooping
to his touch on earth.

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And like a dream that wakes out
of a dream, forsaking the poor

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mold of that dead clay, another
luminous satyavan arose,

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starting upright from the
recumbent earth, as if someone

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over viewless border stepped,
emerging on the edge of unseen

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worlds in the earth's day.
The silent marvel stood between

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the mortal woman and the God.
Such seemed he, as if one

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departed, came wearing the light
of a celestial shape splendidly

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alien to the mortal air.
The mind sought things long

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loved, and fell back, foiled
from unfamiliar hues, beheld yet

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longed by the sweet radiant
form, unsatisfied, incredulous

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of its two bright hints of
heaven, too strange, the

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brilliant phantasm to life's
clasp, desiring the warm

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creations of the earth, reared
in the ardor of material Suns,

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the senses seized in vain a
glorious shade only the spirit

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knew, the spirit still, and the
heart divine.

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The old loved heart, though
changed between two realms, he

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stood, not wavering, but fixed
in quiet, strong expectancy,

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Like one who sightless listens
for a command.

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So were they immobile on that
earthly field, powers not of

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earth, though one in human clay.
On either side of 1-2 spirits

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strove.
Silence battled with silence,

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vast with vast.
But now the impulse of the path

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was felt, moving from the
silence that supports the stars

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to touch the confines of the
visible world.

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Luminous, he moved away.
Behind him death went slowly

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with his noiseless tread as seen
in dream built fields.

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A shadowy herdsman glides behind
some wanderer from his voiceless

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herds, and Savitri moved behind
eternal death.

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Her mortal pace was equalled
with the gods.

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Wordless, she travelled in her
lover's steps, planting her

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human feet where his had trod
into the perilous silences

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beyond.