Opening Remarks
The passage of days were increasingly burdened with grief as the date of prophesy drew near.
Deepest grief
The more she plunged into love that anguish grew;
Her deepest grief from sweetest gulfs arose.
The very thing that gave her joy became now a source of grief. Love was clouded by the shadow of death and sweetness and joy of union marred by anticipatory loss and grief.
Poignant pang
Remembrance was a poignant pang, she felt
Each day a golden leaf torn cruelly out
From her too slender book of love and joy.
Remembrance of the date when death will strike brought a poignant pang to her heart. Each day felt like a golden leaf cruelly torn out from the thin book of love and joy granted to her by fate.
Future’s night
Thus swaying in strong gusts of happiness
And swimming in foreboding’s sombre waves
And feeding sorrow and terror with her heart,—
For now they sat among her bosom’s guests
Or in her inner chamber paced apart,—
Her eyes stared blind into the future’s night.
Savitri thus swayed between strong gusts of happiness and waves of anxious foreboding. Feeding the sorrow and fear with her love where they had entered alongside in her heart her eyes stared blind into the darkness of the night that the future seemed to hold for her.
Towards an unknown doom
Out of her separate self she looked and saw,
Moving amid the unconscious faces loved,
In mind a stranger though in heart so near,
The ignorant smiling world go happily by
Upon its way towards an unknown doom
And wondered at the careless lives of men.
Living amidst the people around with whom she had tied herself in her heart, her mind felt a stranger as she saw the ignorant world smile and go by upon its way towards an unknown doom. She wondered at the unconscious careless lives of men.
Dreadful knowledge
As if in different worlds they walked, though close,
They confident of the returning sun,
They wrapped in little hourly hopes and tasks,—
She in her dreadful knowledge was alone.
They lived as if in two different worlds close to each other. The people around lived as if they would see the next day and hence wrapped their days in little hourly hopes and tasks while she was alone in her dreadful knowledge of the approaching doom.
Fragile happiness
The rich and happy secrecy that once
Enshrined her as if in a silver bower
Apart in a bright nest of thoughts and dreams
Made room for tragic hours of solitude
And lonely grief that none could share or know,
A body seeing the end too soon of joy
And the fragile happiness of its mortal love.
Her heart full of joy and plenitude that once lived in a spiritual shrine in a bright nest of beautiful thoughts and dreams opened itself to loneliness and grief. None could know or share her grief as she saw the end of joy too soon and the fragile happiness that mortal love could give.
Closing Remarks
Thus Savitri tossed between waves of happiness and the foreboding grief.
