Salutations to a New Dawn

As the year 2013 draws to a close, we offer our tribute to the passing year and await, with renewed vigour and certitude of victory over all obscurities, the approaching New Year, 2014. To observe this occasion, the editorial team has put together on this page, a small compilation of ‘Savitri’ lines with pictures of dawn captured one fine morning in Pondicherry as dawn broke out over the Bay of Bengal.

Photos by Jayanthy, Verses from Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Savitri’ compiled by Sudha and artistic layout by Sumant

It was the hour before the Gods awake.
Across the path of the divine Event
The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her unlit temple of eternity.

Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs
Forgetful of her spirit and her fate.
The impassive skies were neutral, empty, still.
Then something in the inscrutable darkness stirred;

Like a vague smile tempting a desert heart
Troubled the far rim of life's obscure sleep.
Arrived from the other side of boundlessness
An eye of deity pierced through the dumb deeps;

One lucent corner windowing hidden things
Forced the world's blind immensity to sight.
The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak
From the reclining body of a god.

A message from the unknown immortal Light
Ablaze upon creation's quivering edge,
Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues
And buried its seed of grandeur in the hours.