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Here from a low and prone and listless ground The passion of the first ascent began; A moon-bright face in a sombre cloud of hair, A Woman sat in a pale lustrous robe. A rugged and ragged soil was her bare seat, Beneath her feet a sharp and wounding stone. A divine pity on the peaks of the world, A spirit touched by the grief of all that lives, She looked out far and saw from inner mind This questionable world of outward things, Of false appearances and plausible shapes, This dubious cosmos stretched in the ignorant Void, The pangs of earth, the toil and speed of the stars And the difficult birth and dolorous end of life. Accepting the universe as her body of woe, The Mother of the seven sorrows bore The seven stabs that pierced her bleeding heart: The beauty of sadness lingered on her face, Her eyes were dim with the ancient stain of tears. Her heart was riven with the world's agony And burdened with the sorrow and struggle in Time, An anguished music trailed in her rapt voice. Absorbed in a deep compassion's ecstasy, Lifting the mild ray of her patient gaze, In soft sweet training words slowly she spoke: "O Savitri, I am thy secret soul. To share the suffering of the world I came, I draw my children's pangs into my breast. I am the nurse of the dolour beneath the stars; I am the soul of all who wailing writhe Under the ruthless harrow of the Gods. 
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