Savitri: Book 1 Canto 1 Section 2 2:45 to 17:06

Apart, living within, all lives she bore;

Aloof, she carried in herself the world:

Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread,

Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights;

The universal Mother’s love was hers.

Against the evil at life’s afflicted roots,

Her own calamity its private sign,

Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.

A solitary mind, a world-wide heart,

To the lone Immortal’s unshared work she rose.

At first life grieved not in her burdened breast:

On the lap of earth’s original somnolence

Inert, released into forgetfulness,

Prone it reposed, unconscious on mind’s verge,

Obtuse and tranquil like the stone and star.

In a deep cleft of silence twixt two realms

She lay remote from grief, unsawn by care,

Nothing recalling of the sorrow here.

Then a slow faint remembrance shadowlike moved,

And sighing she laid her hand upon her bosom

And recognised the close and lingering ache,

Deep, quiet, old, made natural to its place,

But knew not why it was there nor whence it came.

The Power that kindles mind was still withdrawn:

Heavy, unwilling were life’s servitors

Like workers with no wages of delight;

Sullen, the torch of sense refused to burn;

The unassisted brain found not its past.

Only a vague earth-nature held the frame.

But now she stirred, her life shared the cosmic load.

At the summons of her body’s voiceless call

Her strong far-winging spirit travelled back,

Back to the yoke of ignorance and fate,

Back to the labour and stress of mortal days,

Lighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams

Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep.