⁠Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol ⁠by Sri Aurobindo, Book II The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, Canto 2 The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, pp. 103-107

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In the impalpable field of
secret self, this little outer

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being's vast support parted from
vision by Earth's solid fence,

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he came into a magic crystal air
and found a life that lived not

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by the flesh, a light that made
visible immaterial things a fine

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degree in wonders, hierarchy.
The Kingdom of subtle matters,

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fairy craft outlined against a
sky of vivid hues, leaping out

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of a splendor, trance and haze,
the wizard revelation of its

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front.
A world of lovelier forms lies

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near to ours, where, undisguised
by Earth's deforming sight, all

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shapes are beautiful and all
things true.

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In that lucent ambience,
mystically clear, the eyes were

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doors to a celestial sense,
hearing was music and the touch

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a charm, and the heart drew a
deeper breath of power.

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There dwell earth, nature's
shining origins, the perfect

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plans on which she moulds her
works, the distant outcomes of

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her travailing force.
Repose in a framework of

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established fate, attempted
vainly now, or one in vain

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already, were mapped and
scheduled there.

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The time and figure of her
future sovereignties in the

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sumptuous lineaments traced by
desire, the golden issue of

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mind's labyrinth plots, the
riches unfound or still uncaught

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by our lives, unsullied by the
attaint of mortal thought, abide

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in that pellucid atmosphere.
Our vague beginnings are

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overtaken there, our middle term
sketched out in prescient lines,

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our finished ends anticipated
live.

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This brilliant roof of our
descending plain, intercepting

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the free boon of heaven's air,
admits small inrushes of a

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mighty breath, or fragrant
circuits through gold lattices.

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Its Shields our sealing of
terrestrial mind from deathless

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Suns and the streaming of God's
reign.

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It canalizes a stranged Irish
glow and bright dews drip from

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the immortal sky.
A passage for the powers that

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move our days.
A cult behind this grocer,

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nature's walls, a gossamer
marriage hall of mind with form

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is hidden by a tapestry of
dreams.

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Heaven's meaning steel through
it as through a veil.

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Its inner sight sustains this
outer scene, a finer

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consciousness with happier lines
it has attacked.

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Our touch cannot attain a purity
of sense we never feel.

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Its intercession with the
Eternal ray inspires our

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transient earth's brief lived
attempts at beauty and the

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perfect shape of things in rooms
of the young divinity of power

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and early play of the Eternal
Child.

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The embodiments of his out
winging thoughts laved in a

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bright everlasting wondrous
tints and lulled by whispers of

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that lucid air, take dream hued
rest like birds on timeless

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trees before they dive to float
on earth times sea.

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All that here seems has lovelier
semblance there.

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Whatever our hearts conceive,
our heads create some high

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original beauty, forfeiting
thence exiled here consents to

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an earthly tinge.
Whatever is here, a visible

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charm and grace, finds there its
faultless and immortal lines.

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All that is beautiful here is
there.

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Divine figures are there,
undreamed by mortal mind.

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Bodies that have no earthly
counterpart traverse the inner

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eyes illumined trance and ravish
the heart with their celestial

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tread, persuading heaven to
inhabit that wonder sphere.

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The future's marvels wander in
its gulfs.

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Things old and new are fashioned
in those depths.

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A carnival of beauty crowds the
heights in that magic Kingdom of

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ideal sight.
In its anti chambers of splendid

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privacy, matter and soul, in
conscious union meet like lovers

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in a lonely secret place.
In the clasp of a passion not

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yet unfortunate, they join their
strength and sweetness and

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delight and mingling make the
high and low worlds one intruder

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from the formless infinite.
Daring to break into the in

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conscience rain, the spirits
leap towards body touches ground

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as yet unwrapped in earthly
lineaments.

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Already it wears, outlasting
death and birth, convincing the

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abyss by heavenly form, a
covering of its immortality,

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alive to the lustre of the
wearer's rank, Fit to endure the

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rub of change and time.
A tissue mixed of the soul's

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radiant light and matters.
Substance of sign, burdened

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force imagined vainly in our
minds, thin air an abstract

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phantasm, mould of mental make.
It feels what earthly bodies

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cannot feel, and is more real
than this grosser frame after

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the falling of mortality's
cloak.

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Lightened is its weight to
heighten its ascent.

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Refined to the touch of finer
environments, it drops old

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patterned palls of denser stuff,
cancels the grip of earth's

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descending pole, and bears the
soul from world to higher world,

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till in the naked ether of the
peaks the spirit simplicity

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alone is left the eternal
Being's first transparent robe.

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But when it must come back to
its mortal load and the hard

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ensemble of Earth's experience,
then its return resumes that

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heavier dress.
For long before Earth's solid

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vest was forged by the technique
of the atomic void, a lucent

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envelope of self disguise was
woven round the secret spirit in

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things the subtle realms.
From those bright sheaths are

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made this wonder world, with all
its radiant boon of vision and

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inviolate happiness, only for
expression, cares, and perfect

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form.
Fair on its peaks it has

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dangerous nether plains.
Its light draws towards the

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verge of nature's laps.
It lends beauty to the terror of

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the gulfs and fascinating eyes
to perilous gods.

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Invests with grace the demon and
the snake.

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Its trance imposes Earth's in
conscience immortal.

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It weaves for us death's somber
robe and authorizes our

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mortality.
This medium serves a greater

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consciousness, a vessel of its
concealed autocracy.

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It is the subtle ground of
matters worlds.

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It is the immutable in their
mutable forms.

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In the folds of its creative
memory it guards the deathless

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type of perishing things.
Its lower potencies found our

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fallen strengths, its thought
invents our reasoned ignorance.

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Its sense fathers our bodies
reflexes, our secret breath of

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untried mightier force, the
lurking sun of an instant's

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inner sight.
Its fine suggestions are a

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covert fount for our iridescent
rich imaginings, touching things

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common with transfiguring hues,
till even earth's mud grows rich

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and warm with the skies and a
glory gleams from the soul's

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decadence.
Its knowledge is our error's

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starting point.
Its beauty Dons our mud mask,

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ugliness its artist good begins
our evil's tale.

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A heaven of creative truths
above a cosmos of harmonious

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dreams between a chaos of
dissolving forms below it

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plunges, lost in our inconscient
base.

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Out of its fall our denser
matter came.