Karna and Kunti
THE FUGITIVE—I
1
Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant space frets into eddying bubbles of light.
Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable loneliness?
Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled tresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as from a broken necklace?
Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping aside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes the sacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth.
Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least speck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an unbearable pressure.
My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the anklets of light are shaken.
They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm of the ancient sea.
I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form to form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings and songs.
The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire, my heart!
Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towards limitless light.
2
We came hither together, friend, and now at the cross-roads I stop to bid you farewell.
Your path is wide and straight before you, but my call comes up by ways from the unknown.
I shall follow wind and cloud; I shall follow the stars to where day breaks behind the hills; I shall follow lovers who, as they walk, twine their days into a wreath on a single thread of song, "I love."
3
It was growing dark when I asked her, "What strange land have I come to?"
She only lowered her eyes, and the water gurgled in the throat of her jar, as she walked away.
The trees hang vaguely over the bank, and the land appears as though it already belonged to the past.
The water is dumb, the bamboos are darkly still, a wristlet tinkles against the water-jar from down the lane.
Row no more, but fasten the boat to this tree,—for I love the look of this land.
The evening star goes down behind the temple dome, and the pallor of the marble landing haunts the dark water.
Belated wayfarers sigh; for light from hidden windows is splintered into the darkness by intervening wayside trees and bushes. Still that wristlet tinkles against the water-jar, and retreating steps rustle from down the lane littered with leaves.
The night deepens, the palace towers loom spectre-like, and the town hums wearily.
Row no more, but fasten the boat to a tree.
Let me seek rest in this strange land, dimly lying under the stars, where darkness tingles with the tinkle of a wristlet knocking against a water-jar.
4
O that I were stored with a secret, like unshed rain in summer clouds—a secret, folded up in silence, that I could wander away with.
O that I had some one to whisper to, where slow waters lap under trees that doze in the sun.
The hush this evening seems to expect a footfall, and you ask me for the cause of my tears.
I cannot give a reason why I weep, for that is a secret still withheld from me.
5
For once be careless, timid traveller, and utterly lose your way; wide-awake though you are, be like broad daylight enticed by and netted in mist.
Do not shun the garden of Lost Hearts waiting at the end of the wrong road, where the grass is strewn with wrecked red flowers, and disconsolate water heaves in the troubled sea.
Long have you watched over the store gathered by weary years. Let it be stripped, with nothing remaining but the desolate triumph of losing all.
6
Two little bare feet flit over the ground, and seem to embody that metaphor, "Flowers are the footprints of summer."
They lightly impress on the dust the chronicle of their adventure, to be erased by a passing breeze.
Come, stray into my heart, you tender little feet, and leave the everlasting print of songs on my dreamland path.
7
I am like the night to you, little flower.
I can only give you peace and a wakeful silence hidden in the dark.
When in the morning you open your eyes, I shall leave you to a world a-hum with bees, and songful with birds.
My last gift to you will be a tear dropped into the depth of your youth; it will make your smile all the sweeter, and bemist your outlook on the pitiless mirth of day.
8
Do not stand before my window with those hungry eyes and beg for my secret. It is but a tiny stone of glistening pain streaked with blood-red by passion.
What gifts have you brought in both hands to fling before me in the dust?
I fear, if I accept, to create a debt that can never be paid even by the loss of all I have.
Do not stand before my window with your youth and flowers to shame my destitute life.
9
If I were living in the royal town of Ujjain, when Kalidas was the king's poet, I should know some Malwa girl and fill my thoughts with the music of her name. She would glance at me through the slanting shadow of her eyelids, and allow her veil to catch in the jasmine as an excuse for lingering near me.
This very thing happened in some past whose track is lost under time's dead leaves.
The scholars fight to-day about dates that play hide-and-seek.
I do not break my heart dreaming over flown and
