LITMIR.BIZ

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      That seek for mutual joy in spite of pain.

      We have each other found, O Satyavan,

      In the great light of the discovered soul.

      Let us go back, for eve is in the skies.

      Now grief is dead and serene bliss remains

      The heart of all our days for evermore.

      Lo, all these beings in this wonderful world!

      Let us give joy to all, for joy is ours.

      For not for ourselves alone our spirits came

      Out of the veil of the Unmanifest,

      Out of the deep immense Unknowable

      Upon the ignorant breast of dubious earth,

      Into the ways of labouring, seeking men,

      Two fires that burn towards that parent Sun,

      Two rays that travel to the original Light.

      To lead man’s soul towards truth and God we are born,

      To draw the chequered scheme of mortal life

      Into some semblance of the Immortal’s plan,

      To shape it closer to an image of God,

      A little nearer to the Idea divine.”

      She closed her arms about his breast and head

      As if to keep him on her bosom worn

      For ever through the journeying of the years.

      So for a while they stood entwined, their kiss

      And passion-tranced embrace a meeting-point

      In their commingling spirits one for ever,

      Two-souled, two-bodied for the joys of Time.

      Then hand in hand they left that solemn place

      Full now of mute unusual memories,

      To the green distance of their sylvan home

      Returning slowly through the forest’s heart.

      Round them the afternoon to evening changed;

      Light slipped down to the brightly sleeping verge,

      And the birds came back winging to their nests,

      And day and night leaned to each other’s arms.

      Now the dusk shadowy trees stood close around

      Like dreaming spirits and, delaying night,

      The grey-eyed pensive evening heard their steps,

      And from all points the cries and movements came

      Of the four-footed wanderers of the night

      Approaching. Then a human rumour rose

      Long alien to their solitary days,

      Invading the charmed wilderness of leaves

      Once sacred to secluded loneliness

      With violent breaking of its virgin sleep.

      Through the screened dusk it deepened still and there neared

      Floating of many voices and the sound

      Of many feet, till on their sight broke in

      As if a coloured wave upon the eye

      The brilliant strenuous crowded days of man.

      Topped by a flaring multitude of lights

      A great resplendent company arrived.

      Life in its ordered tumult wavering came

      Bringing its stream of unknown faces, thronged

      With gold-fringed headdresses, gold-broidered robes,

      Glittering of ornaments, fluttering of hems,

      Hundreds of hands parted the forest-boughs,

      Hundreds of eyes searched the entangled glades.

      Calm white-clad priests their grave-eyed sweetness brought,

      Strong warriors in their glorious armour shone,

      The proud-hooved steeds came trampling through the wood.

      In front King Dyumatsena walked, no more

      Blind, faltering-limbed, but his far-questing eyes

      Restored to all their confidence in light

      Took seeingly this imaged outer world;

      Firmly he trod with monarch step the soil.

      By him that queen and mother’s anxious face

      Came changed from its habitual burdened look

      Which in its drooping strength of tired toil

      Had borne the fallen life of those she loved.

      Her patient paleness wore a pensive glow

      Like evening’s subdued gaze of gathered light

      Departing, which foresees sunrise her child.

      Sinking in quiet splendours of her sky,

      She lives awhile to muse upon that hope,

      The brilliance of her rich receding gleam

      A thoughtful prophecy of lyric dawn.

      Her eyes were first to find her children’s forms.

      But at the vision of the beautiful twain

      The air awoke perturbed with scaling cries,

      And the swift parents hurrying to their child, –

      Their cause of life now who had given him breath, –

      Possessed him with their arms. Then tenderly

      Cried Dyumatsena chiding Satyavan:

      “The fortunate gods have looked on me today,

      A kingdom seeking came and heaven’s rays.

      But where wast thou? Thou hast tormented gladness

      With fear’s dull shadow, O my child, my life.

      What danger kept thee for the darkening woods?

      Or how could pleasure in her ways forget

      That useless orbs without thee are my eyes

      Which only for thy sake rejoice at light?

      Not like thyself was this done, Savitri,

      Who ledst not back thy husband to our arms,

      Knowing with him beside me only is taste

      In food and for his touch evening and morn

      I live content with my remaining days.”

      But Satyavan replied with smiling lips,

      “Lay all on her; she is the cause of all.

      With her enchantments she has twined me round.

      Behold, at noon leaving this house of clay

      I wandered in far-off eternities,

      Yet still, a captive in her golden hands,

      I tread your little hillock called green earth

      And in the moments of your transient sun

      Live glad among the busy works of men.”

      Then all eyes turned their wondering looks where stood,

      A deepening redder gold upon her cheeks,

      With lowered lids the noble lovely child,

      And one consenting

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