It was as though even in this Nought’s profound,
Even in this ultimate dissolution’s core,
There lurked an unrememebring entity,
Survivor of a slain and buried past
Condemned to resume the effort and the pang,
Reviving in another frustrate world.
An unshaped consciousness desired light
And a blank prescience yearned towards distant change.
As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek
Reminded of the endless need in things
The heedless Mother of the universe,
An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.
Insensibly somewhere a breach began:
A long lone line of hesitating hue
Like a vague smile tempting a desert heart
Troubled the far rim of life’s obscure sleep.
(Savitri, p.
2)
In the second line of the following passage, a
suggestion was made for ‘stars’ in place of ‘suns’. This was in 1946 when Sri
Aurobindo used to send the Savitri-drafts
to Amal Kiran who was at that time in
...the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force
Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns
And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.
I am not disposed to change
"suns" to "stars" in the line about the creative slumber of
the ignorant Force; "stars" does not create the same impression and
brings in a different tone in the rhythm and the sense. This line and that
which follows it bring in a general subordinate idea stressing the paradoxical
nature of the creation and the contrasts which it contains, the drowsed
somnambulist as the mother of the light of the suns and the activities of life.
It is not intended as a present feature in the darkness of the Night.
But more interesting is the simile of a child laying
its finger on the cheek of the mother to draw her attention towards something which
according to it is very important, that attention be paid to it without delay:
As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek
Reminding of the endless need in things
The heedless Mother of the universe,
An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.
Your objection to the "finger" and the
"clutch" moves me only to change "reminding" to
"reminded" in the second line. It is not intended that the two images
"finger laid" and "clutch" should correspond exactly to
each other; for the "void"3 and the "Mother of the
universe" are not the same thing. The "void" is only a mask
covering the Mother's cheek or face. What the "void" feels as a
clutch is felt by the Mother only as a reminding finger laid on her cheek. [Probably
Sri Aurobindo is taking the ‘sombre Vast’ as the ‘void’ which is perfectly
understandable. It should also be remembered that in 1946 Sri Aurobindo was
dictating the answer and not writing with the texts lying open in front of him.
Then, about the occurrence of ‘as if’ in rather quick succession around this
description we have the following explanation.] It is one advantage of the
expression "as if" that it leaves the field open for such variation.
It is intended to suggest without saying it that behind the sombre void is the
face of a mother. The two other "as if” have the same motive and I do not
find them jarring upon me. The second is at a sufficient distance from the
first and it is not obtrusive enough to prejudice the third which more nearly
follows. ... Your suggestion "as though" (for the third) does not
appeal to me: it almost makes a suggestion of falsity and in any case it makes
no real difference as the two expressions are too much kin to each other to
repel the charge of reiteration.
Such attention to details! Sri Aurobindo was writing a
different kind of poetry which demanded not only new modes of expression, native
to the spirit, but also a certain sensitivity, on part of the reader a degree
of spiritual awareness of the sense and the sound it carries; it demanded a
special audience born of spiritual maturity. The child pressing its finger on
the cheek of the mother is a delicate simile, of course very apt also with the familial
warmth and intimacy, but it has the remarkable power to make an opening in the
sombre Vast, as much as making step the household into cosmic dimensions. Such
is the supremacy of the new poetry!
The result of this sweetly forcing out the attention of
the heedless power, the power that mothers our souls, was to stir up the dark
and drowsy and dull things. Indeed it was a breakthrough in the sombre vastness
that had yet the creative proportion of another kind. What was imperceptive and
reluctant and unresponsive woke up to the task it had to promptly carry out. A
crack in the greyish unenthusiastic sky allowed a hopeful line to emerge; a thin
and trembling flash that had a good deal of hesitation made its appearance. A
small indistinct smile broke out on the face of the mother and a movement
occurred, a faint response came when there was no emotion even to her own
child’s need. Life’s shadowy incomprehensibility and unintelligibility began to
feel the sense of meaning and purpose, that it must awake to the reality of its
existence. A great movement has occurred in the unfoldment of new things,
things on the verge of a new birth. But will this hesitant birth prove
fruitful, will it accomplish what it is supposed to accomplish? That is the
troubling question. It is not unlikely that the past experience might repeat
once more. The habit of the past cannot be underestimated and it can as well
swallow up everything, all that has been achieved. Who knows? It is a force whose
capacity and capability cannot be underestimated, belittled. Perhaps a diviner
hand stronger than this force of the past, the karma of this inconscient creation,
might have to take hold of the entire situation. Will it appear? will it
happen? Can a prayer rise that it be so? In it alone is the hope. Perhaps that
is the only way.