Savitri: Book 3 Canto 4 Section 1

Illumining breath to think and plasm to feel,

He labours with his slow and sceptic brain

Helped by the reason’s vacillating fires,

To make his thought and will a magic door

For knowledge to enter the darkness of the world

And love to rule a realm of strife and hate.

A mind impotent to reconcile heaven and earth

And tied to Matter with a thousand bonds,

He lifts himself to be a conscious god.

Even when a glory of wisdom crowns his brow,

When mind and spirit shed a grandiose ray

To exalt this product of the sperm and gene,

This alchemist’s miracle from plasm and gas,

And he who shared the animal’s run and crawl

Lifts his thought-stature to the Immortal’s heights,

His life still keeps the human middle way;

His body he resigns to death and pain,

Abandoning Matter, his too heavy charge.

A thaumaturge sceptic of miracles,

A spirit left sterile of its occult power

By an unbelieving brain and credulous heart,

He leaves the world to end where it began:

His work unfinished he claims a heavenly prize.

Thus has he missed creation’s absolute.

Half-way he stops his star of destiny:

A vast and vain long-tried experiment,

An ill-served high conception doubtfully done,

The world’s life falters on not seeing its goal,—

A zigzag towards unknown dangerous ground

Ever repeating its habitual walk,

Ever retreating after marches long

And hardiest victories without sure result,

Drawn endlessly an inconclusive game.