She held their hands, she chose for them their paths

Savitri: Book 4 Canto 2 Section 1 Part 1 So men worship a god too great to know, Too high, too vast to wear a limiting shape; They feel a Presence and obey a might, Adore a love whose rapture invades their breasts; To a divine ardour quickening the heart-beats, A law they follow greatening heart and life. Opened to the breath is a new diviner air, Opened to man is a freer, happier world: He sees high steps climbing to Self and Light. Her divine parts the soul’s allegiance called: It saw, it felt, it knew the deity. Her will was puissant on their nature’s acts, Her heart’s inexhaustible sweetness lured their hearts, A being they loved whose bounds exceeded theirs; Her measure they could not reach but bore her touch, Answering with the flower’s answer to the sun They gave themselves to her and asked no more. One greater than themselves, too wide for their ken, Their minds could not understand nor wholly know, Their lives replied to hers, moved at her words: They felt a godhead and obeyed a call, Answered to her lead and did her work in the world; Their lives, their natures moved compelled by hers As if the truth of their own larger selves Put on an aspect of divinity To exalt them to a pitch beyond their earth’s. They felt a larger future meet their walk; She held their hands, she chose for them their paths: They were moved by her towards great unknown things, Faith drew them and the joy to feel themselves hers; They lived in her, they saw the world with her eyes. Some turned to her against their nature’s bent; Divided between wonder and revolt, Drawn by her charm and mastered by her will, Possessed by her, her striving to possess, Impatient subjects, their tied longing hearts Hugging the bonds close of which they most complained, Murmured at a yoke they would have wept to lose, The splendid yoke of her beauty and her love: Others pursued her with life’s blind desires And claiming all of her as their lonely own, Hastened to engross her sweetness meant for all.