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BOOK EIGHT
The Book of Death
Canto Three ¹
Death in the Forest NOW it was here in this great golden dawn. By her still sleeping husband lain she gazed Into her past as one about to dieLooks back upon the sunlit fields of life Where he too ran and sported with the rest,Lifting his head above the huge dark stream Into whose depths he must for ever plunge.All she had been and done she lived again. The whole year in a swift and eddying raceOf memories swept through her and fled away Into the irrecoverable past.Then silently she rose and, service done, Bowed down to the great goddess simply carvedBy Satyavan upon a forest stone. What prayer she breathed her soul and Durga knew.Perhaps she felt in the dim forest huge The infinite Mother watching over her child,Perhaps the shrouded Voice spoke some still word. At last she came to the pale mother queen.She spoke but with guarded lips and tranquil face Lest some stray word or some betraying lookShould let pass into the mother’s unknowing breast, Slaying all happiness and need to live,A dire foreknowledge of the grief to come. Only the needed utterance passage found:All else she pressed back into her anguished heart And forced upon her speech an outward peace.
¹The Book of Death was taken from Canto Three of an early version of Savitri which had only six cantos and an epilogue. It was slightly revised at a late stage and a number of new lines were added, but it was never fully worked into the final version of the poem. Its original designation, “Canto Three”, has been retained as a reminder of this.
Page – 561 “One year that I have lived with Satyavan Here on the emerald edge of the vast woods In the iron ring of the enormous peaksUnder the blue rifts of the forest sky, I have not gone into the silencesOf this great woodland that enringed my thoughts With mystery, nor in its green miraclesWandered, but this small clearing was my world. Now has a strong desire seized all my heartTo go with Satyavan holding his hand Into the life that he has loved and touchHerbs he has trod and know the forest flowers And hear at ease the birds and the scurrying lifeThat starts and ceases, rich far rustle of boughs And all the mystic whispering of the woods.Release me now and let my heart have rest.” She answered: “Do as thy wise mind desires,O calm child-sovereign with the eyes that rule. I hold thee for a strong goddess who has comePitying our barren days; so dost thou serve Even as a slave might, yet art thou beyondAll that thou doest, all our minds conceive, Like the strong sun that serves earth from above.”Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew Went with linked hands into that solemn worldWhere beauty and grandeur and unspoken dream, Where Nature’s mystic silence could be feltCommuning with the secrecy of God. Beside her Satyavan walked full of joyBecause she moved with him through his green haunts: He showed her all the forest’s riches, flowersInnumerable of every odour and hue And soft thick clinging creepers red and greenAnd strange rich-plumaged birds, to every cry That haunted sweetly distant boughs repliedWith the shrill singer’s name more sweetly called.
Page – 562 He spoke of all the things he loved: they were His boyhood’s comrades and his playfellows, Coevals and companions of his lifeHere in this world whose every mood he knew: Their thoughts which to the common mind are blank,He shared, to every wild emotion felt An answer. Deeply she listened, but to hearThe voice that soon would cease from tender words And treasure its sweet cadences belovedFor lonely memory when none by her walked And the beloved voice could speak no more.But little dwelt her mind upon their sense; Of death, not life she thought or life’s lone end.Love in her bosom hurt with the jagged edges Of anguish moaned at every step with painCrying, “Now, now perhaps his voice will cease For ever.” Even by some vague touch oppressedSometimes her eyes looked round as if their orbs Might see the dim and dreadful god’s approach.But Satyavan had paused. He meant to finish His labour here that happy, linked, uncaringThey two might wander free in the green deep Primaeval mystery of the forest’s heart.A tree that raised its tranquil head to heaven Luxuriating in verdure, summoningThe breeze with amorous wideness of its boughs, He chose and with his steel assailed the armBrown, rough and strong hidden in its emerald dress. Wordless but near she watched, no turn to loseOf the bright face and body which she loved. Her life was now in seconds, not in hours,And every moment she economised Like a pale merchant leaned above his store,The miser of his poor remaining gold. But Satyavan wielded a joyous axe.He sang high snatches of a sage’s chant
Page – 563 That pealed of conquered death and demons slain, And sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech Of love and mockery tenderer than love:She like a pantheress leaped upon his words And carried them into her cavern heart.But as he worked, his doom upon him came. The violent and hungry hounds of painTravelled through his body biting as they passed Silently, and all his suffering breath besiegedStrove to rend life’s strong heart-cords and be free. Then helped, as if a beast had left its prey,A moment in a wave of rich relief Reborn to strength and happy ease he stoodRejoicing and resumed his confident toil But with less seeing strokes. Now the great woodsmanHewed at him and his labour ceased: lifting His arm he flung away the poignant axeFar from him like an instrument of pain. She came to him in silent anguish and clasped,And he cried to her, “Savitri, a pang Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axeWere piercing it and not the living branch. Such agony rends me as the tree must feelWhen it is sundered and must lose its life. Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lapAnd guard me with thy hands from evil fate: Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass.”Then Savitri sat under branches wide, Cool, green against the sun, not the hurt treeWhich his keen axe had cloven, — that she shunned; But leaned beneath a fortunate kingly trunkShe guarded him in her bosom and strove to soothe His anguished brow and body with her hands.All grief and fear were dead within her now And a great calm had fallen. The wish to lessenHis suffering, the impulse that opposes pain
Page – 564 Were the one mortal feeling left. It passed: Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.But now his sweet familiar hue was changed Into a tarnished greyness and his eyesDimmed over, forsaken of the clear light she loved. Only the dull and physical mind was left,Vacant of the bright spirit’s luminous gaze. But once before it faded wholly back,He cried out in a clinging last despair, “Savitri, Savitri, O Savitri,Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die.” And even as her pallid lips pressed his,His failed, losing last sweetness of response; His cheek pressed down her golden arm. She soughtHis mouth still with her living mouth, as if She could persuade his soul back with her kiss;Then grew aware they were no more alone. Something had come there conscious, vast and dire.Near her she felt a silent shade immense Chilling the noon with darkness for its back.An awful hush had fallen upon the place: There was no cry of birds, no voice of beasts.A terror and an anguish filled the world, As if annihilation’s mysteryHad taken a sensible form. A cosmic mind Looked out on all from formidable eyesContemning all with its unbearable gaze And with immortal lids and a vast browIt saw in its immense destroying thought All things and beings as a pitiful dream,Rejecting with calm disdain Nature’s delight, The wordless meaning of its deep regardVoicing the unreality of things And life that would be for ever but never wasAnd its brief and vain recurrence without cease, As if from a Silence without form or name
Page – 565 The Shadow of a remote uncaring god Doomed to his Nought the illusory universe, Cancelling its show of idea and act in TimeAnd its imitation of eternity. She knew that visible Death was standing thereAnd Satyavan had passed from her embrace. END OF BOOK EIGHT END OF PART TWO Page – 566 |