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IN SILENT bounds bordering the mortal’s plane |
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Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace |
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Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise |
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Came chanting through the large and lustrous air. |
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| (S 2) |
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| 5 |
Attracted by the golden summer-earth |
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That lay beneath him like a glowing bowl |
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Tilted upon a table of the Gods, |
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Turning as if moved round by an unseen hand |
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To catch the warmth and blaze of a small sun, |
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| 10 |
He passed from the immortals’ happy paths |
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To a world of toil and quest and grief and hope, |
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To these rooms of the see-saw game of death with life. |
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| (S 3) |
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Across an intangible border of soul-space |
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He passed from Mind into material things |
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| 15 |
Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self |
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And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force. |
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| (S 4) |
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Below him circling burned the myriad suns: |
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He bore the ripples of the etheric sea; |
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A primal Air brought the first joy of touch; |
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| 20 |
A secret Spirit drew its mighty breath |
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Contracting and expanding this huge world |
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In its formidable circuit through the Void; |
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The secret might of the creative Fire |
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Displayed its triple power to build and form, |
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| 25 |
Its infinitesimal wave-sparks’ weaving dance, |
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Its nebulous units grounding shape and mass, |
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Magic foundation and pattern of a world, |
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Its radiance bursting into the light of stars; |
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He felt a sap of life, a sap of death; |
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| 30 |
Into solid Matter’s dense communion |
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Plunging and its obscure oneness of forms |
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He shared with a dumb Spirit identity. |
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| (S 5) |
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He beheld the cosmic Being at his task, |
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His eyes measured the spaces, gauged the depths, |
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| 35 |
His inner gaze the movements of the soul, |
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He saw the eternal labour of the Gods, |
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And looked upon the life of beasts and men. |
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| (S 6) |
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A change now fell upon the singer’s mood, |
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A rapture and a pathos moved his voice; |
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| 40 |
He sang no more of Light that never wanes, |
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And oneness and pure everlasting bliss, |
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He sang no more the deathless heart of Love, |
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His chant was a hymn of Ignorance and Fate. |
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| (S 7) |
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He sang the name of Vishnu and the birth |
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| 45 |
And joy and passion of the mystic world, |
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And how the stars were made and life began |
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And the mute regions stirred with the throb of a Soul. |
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| (S 8) |
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He sang the Inconscient and its secret self, |
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Its power omnipotent knowing not what it does, |
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| 50 |
All-shaping without will or thought or sense, |
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Its blind unerring occult mystery, |
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And darkness yearning towards the eternal Light, |
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And Love that broods within the dim abyss |
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And waits the answer of the human heart, |
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| 55 |
And death that climbs to immortality. |
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| (S 9) |
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He sang of the Truth that cries from Night’s blind deeps, |
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And the Mother-Wisdom hid in Nature’s breast |
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And the Idea that through her dumbness works |
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And the miracle of her transforming hands, |
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| 60 |
Of life that slumbers in the stone and sun |
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And Mind subliminal in mindless life, |
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And the Consciousness that wakes in beasts and men. |
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| (S 10) |
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He sang of the glory and marvel still to be born, |
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Of Godhead throwing off at last its veil, |
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| 65 |
Of bodies made divine and life made bliss, |
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Immortal sweetness clasping immortal might, |
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Heart sensing heart, thought looking straight at thought, |
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And the delight when every barrier falls, |
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And the transfiguration and the ecstasy. |
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| (S 11) |
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| 70 |
And as he sang the demons wept with joy |
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Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task |
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And the defeat for which they hoped in vain, |
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And glad release from their self-chosen doom |
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And return into the One from whom they came. |
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| (S 12) |
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| 75 |
He who has conquered the Immortals’ seats, |
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Came down to men on earth the Man divine. |
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| (S 13) |
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As darts a lightning streak, a glory fell |
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Nearing until the rapt eyes of the sage |
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Looked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned, |
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| 80 |
His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy, |
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Appearing in light descended where arose |
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King Aswapati’s palace to the winds |
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In Madra, flowering up in delicate stone. |
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| (S 14) |
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There welcomed him the sage and thoughtful king, |
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| 85 |
At his side a creature beautiful, passionate, wise, |
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Aspiring like a sacrificial flame |
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Skyward from its earth-seat through luminous air, |
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Queen-browed, the human mother of Savitri. |
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| (S 15) |
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There for an hour untouched by the earth’s siege |
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| 90 |
They ceased from common life and care and sat |
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Inclining to the high and rhythmic voice, |
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While in his measured chant the heavenly seer |
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Spoke of the toils of men and what the gods |
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Strive for on earth, and joy that throbs behind |
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| 95 |
The marvel and the mystery of pain. |
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| (S 16) |
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He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love |
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With all its thousand luminous buds of truth, |
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Which quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things. |
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| (S 17) |
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It trembles at each touch, it strives to wake |
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| 100 |
And one day it shall hear a blissful voice |
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And in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom |
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When she is seized by her discovered lord. |
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| (S 18) |
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A mighty shuddering coil of ecstasy |
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Crept through the deep heart of the universe. |
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| (S 19) |
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| 105 |
Out of her Matter’s stupor, her mind’s dreams, |
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She woke, she looked upon God’s unveiled face. |
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