About Savitri | B1C1-14 The Resistance of Earth (p.7)

In vain now seemed the splendid sacrifice.
A prodigal of her rich divinity,
Her self and all she was she had lent to men,
Hoping her greater being to implant
That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.
Hard is it to persuade earth-nature’s change;
Mortality bears ill the eternal’s touch:
It fears the pure divine intolerance
Of that assault of ether and of fire;
It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness,
Almost with hate repels the light it brings;
It trembles at its naked power of Truth
And the might and sweetness of its absolute Voice.

It is the exact description of the condition of the earth in general. Only, little by little, the number of people who are accepting this Truth in greater and it is why the Divine knows that with patience, repeating the effort, one day it will bring its result. In fact, it is by many repeated attempts and apparent failures that the work is done. And, it is the symbolic representation of this repeated effort that is given in Savitri. It is a symbolic work, not the telling of a story of something that happened; it is the showing in a condensed and imaged representation of this effort of the Divine to divinise the material creation. Actions that in appearance may seem failures are steps — and definite steps — towards Realisation and this is one of the things that have been expressed and represented in Savitri.

Inflicting on the heights the abysm’s law,
It sullies with its mire heaven’s messengers:
Its thorns of fallen nature are the defence
It turns against the saviour hands of Grace;
It meets the sons of God with death and pain.
A glory of lightnings traversing the earth-scene,
Their sun-thoughts fading, darkened by ignorant minds,
Their work betrayed, their good to evil turned,
The cross their payment for the crown they gave,
Only they leave behind a splendid Name.

That is the history of human life upon earth and each time that help has been sent to hasten the evolution, it has been received in that way. But each time the effort and the help are bigger, higher, truer; and each time a little work, some result, is achieved; and step by step, the world grows towards its Realisation.
The whole story has been shown under a symbolic form, in a symbolic story, and it is that that Sri Aurobindo gives in Savitri.