87: O beautiful body of the incarnate Word

A Spiritual Biography of Savitri

 

 

O beautiful body of the incarnate Word,

Thy thoughts are mine, I have spoken with thy voice.

 

My will is thine, what thou hast chosen I choose.

 

All thou hast asked I give to earth and men.

 

All shall be written out in destiny's book

By my trustee of thought and plan and act,

The executor of my will, eternal Time.

 

But since thou hast refused my maimless Calm

And turned from my termless peace in which is expunged

The visage of Space, and the shape of Time is lost,

And from happy extinction of thy separate self

In my uncompanioned lone eternity,—

For not for thee the nameless worldless Nought,

Annihilation of thy living soul

And the end of thought and hope and life and love

In the blank measureless Unknowable,—

Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will

I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame,

I lay my hands upon thy heart of love,

I yoke thee to my power of work in Time.

 

Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will,

Because thou hast chosen to share earth's struggle and fate

And leaned in pity over earth-bound men

And turned aside to help and yearned to save,

I bind by thy heart's passion thy heart to mine

And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul.

 

Now will I do in thee my marvellous works.

 

I will fasten thy nature with my cords of strength,

Subdue to my delight thy spirit's limbs

And make thee a vivid knot of all my bliss,

And build in thee my proud and crystal home.

 

Thy days shall be my shafts of power and light,

Thy nights my starry mysteries of joy

And all my clouds lie tangled in thy hair

And all my springtides marry in thy mouth.

 

O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light

And bring down God into the lives of men;

Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house,

My garden of life to plant a seed divine.

 

When all thy work in human time is done,

The mind of earth shall be a home of light,

The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,

The body of earth a tabernacle of God.

 

Awakened from the mortal's ignorance

Men shall be lit with the Eternal's ray

And the glory of my sun-lift in their thoughts

And feel in their hearts the sweetness of my love

And in their acts my Power's miraculous drive.

 

My will shall be the meaning of their days;

Living for me, by me, in me they shall live.

 

In the heart of my creation's mystery

I will enact the drama of thy soul,

Inscribe the long romance of Thee and Me.

 

I will pursue thee across the century;

Thou shalt be hunted through the world by love,

Naked of ignorance' protecting veil

And without covert from my radiant gods

No shape shall screen thee from my divine desire…

 

Thou shalt bear all things that all things may change,

Thou shalt fill all with my splendour and my bliss,

Thou shalt meet all with my transmuting soul.

 

Assailed by my infinitudes above,

And quivering in immensities below,

Pursued by me through my mind's wall-less vast,

Oceanic with the surges of my life,

A swimmer lost between two leaping seas

By my outer pains and inner sweetnesses

Finding my joy in my opposite mysteries

Thou shalt respond to me from every nerve.

 

A vision shall compel thy coursing breath,

Thy heart shall drive thee on the wheel of works,

Thy mind shall urge thee through the flames of thought,

To meet me in the abyss and on the heights,

To feel me in the tempest and the calm

And love me in the noble and the vile,

In beautiful things and terrible desire.

 

The pains of hell shall be to thee my kiss,

The flowers of heaven persuade thee with my touch.

 

My fiercest masks shall my attractions bring.

 

Music shall find thee in the voice of swords,

Beauty pursue thee through the core of flame…

 

Delight shall drop down from my nectarous moon,

My fragrance seize thee in the jasmine's snare,

My eye shall look upon thee from the sun.

 

Mirror of Nature's secret spirit made,

Thou shalt reflect my hidden heart of joy,

Thou shalt drink down my sweetness unalloyed

In my pure lotus-cup of starry brim.

 

My dreadful hands laid on thy bosom shall force

Thy being bathed in fiercest longings’ streams.

 

Thou shalt discover the one and quivering note

And cry, the harp of all my melodies,

And roll, my foaming wave in seas of love.

 

Even my disasters' clutch shall be to thee

The ordeal of my rapture's contrary shape:

In pain's self shall smile on thee my secret face:

Thou shalt bear my ruthless beauty unabridged

Amid the world's intolerable wrongs,

Trampled by the violent misdeeds of Time

Cry out to the ecstasy of my rapture's touch.

 

All beings shall be to thy life my emissaries;

Drawn to me on the bosom of thy friend,

Compelled to meet me in thy enemy's eyes,

My creatures shall demand me from thy heart…

 

Men seeing thee shall feel my hands of joy,

In sorrow's pangs feel steps of the world's delight,

Their life experience its tumultuous shock

In the mutual craving of two opposites.

 

Hearts touched by thy love shall answer to my call,

Discover the ancient music of the spheres

In the revealing accents of thy voice,

And nearer draw to me because thou art:

Enamoured of thy spirit's loveliness

They shall embrace my body in thy soul,

Hear in thy life the beauty of my laugh,

Know the thrilled bliss with which I made the worlds…

 

I will pour delight from thee as from a jar,

I will whirl thee as my chariot through the ways,

I will use thee as my sword and as my lyre,

I will play on thee my minstrelsies of thought.

 

And when thou art vibrant with all ecstasy,

And when thou liv'st one spirit with all things,

Then will I spare thee not my living fires,

But make thee a channel for my timeless force.

 

My hidden presence led thee unknowing on

From thy beginning in earth's voiceless bosom

Through life and pain and time and will and death,

Through outer shocks and inner silences

Along the mystic roads of Space and Time

To the experience which all Nature hides.

 

Who hunts and seizes me, my captive grows:

This shalt thou henceforth learn from thy heart-beats.

 

For ever love, O beautiful slave of God!

 

O lasso of my rapture's widening noose,

Become my cord of universal love.

 

The spirit ensnared by thee force to delight

Of creation's oneness sweet and fathomless,

Compelled to embrace my myriad unities

And all my endless forms and divine souls.

 

O Mind, grow full of the eternal peace;

O Word, cry out the immortal litany:

Built is the golden tower, the flame-child born.

 

 

Savitri, pp. 698-702