lay my work aside," I said, "for I must have time to understand."
TRANSLATIONS
VAISHNAVA SONGS
1
Oh Sakhi,2 my sorrow knows no bounds.
August comes laden with rain clouds and my house is desolate.
The stormy sky growls, the earth is flooded with rain, my love is far away, and my heart is torn with anguish.
The peacocks dance, for the clouds rumble and frogs croak.
The night brims with darkness flicked with lightning.
Vidyapati3 asks, "Maiden, how are you to spend your days and nights without your lord?"
2
Lucky was my awakening this morning, for I saw my beloved.
The sky was one piece of joy, and my life and youth were fulfilled.
To-day my house becomes my house in truth, and my body my body.
Fortune has proved a friend, and my doubts are dispelled.
Birds, sing your best; moon, shed your fairest light!
Let fly your darts, Love-God, in millions!
I wait for the moment when my body will grow golden at his touch.
Vidyapati says, "Immense is your good fortune, and blessed is your love."
3
I feel my body vanishing into the dust whereon my beloved walks.
I feel one with the water of the lake where he bathes.
Oh Sakhi, my love crosses death's boundary when I meet him.
My heart melts in the light and merges in the mirror whereby he views his face.
I move with the air to kiss him when he waves his fan, and wherever he wanders I enclose him like the sky.
Govindadas says, "You are the gold-setting, fair maiden, he is the emerald."
4
My love, I will keep you hidden in my eyes; I will thread your image like a gem on my joy and hang it on my bosom.
You have been in my heart ever since I was a child, throughout my youth, throughout my life, even through all my dreams.
You dwell in my being when I sleep and when I wake.
Know that I am a woman, and bear with me when you find me wanting.
For I have thought and thought and know for certain that all that is left for me in this world is your love, and if I lose you for a moment I die.
Chandidas says, "Be tender to her who is yours in life and death."
5
"Fruit to sell, Fruit to sell," cried the woman at the door.
The Child came out of the house.
"Give me some fruit," said he, putting a handful of rice in her basket.
The fruit-seller gazed at his face and her eyes swam with tears.
"Who is the fortunate mother," she cried, "that has clasped you in her arms and fed you at her breast, and whom your dear voice called 'Mother'?"
"Offer your fruit to him," says the poet, "and with it your life."
THE FUGITIVE—II
1
Endlessly varied art thou in the exuberant world, Lady of Manifold Magnificence. Thy path is strewn with lights, thy touch thrills into flowers; that trailing skirt of thine sweeps the whirl of a dance among the stars, and thy many-toned music is echoed from innumerable worlds through signs and colours.
Single and alone in the unfathomed stillness of the soul, art thou, Lady of Silence and Solitude, a vision thrilled with light, a lonely lotus blossoming on the stem of love.
2
Behind the rusty iron gratings of the opposite window sits a girl, dark and plain of face, like a boat stranded on a sand-bank when the river is shallow in the summer.
I come back to my room after my day's work, and my tired eyes are lured to her.
She seems to me like a lake with its dark lonely waters edged by moonlight.
She has only her window for freedom: there the morning light meets her musings, and through it her dark eyes like lost stars travel back to their sky.
3
I remember the day.
The heavy shower of rain is slackening into fitful pauses, renewed gusts of wind startle it from a first lull.
I take up my instrument. Idly I touch the strings, till, without my knowing, the music borrows the mad cadence of that storm.
I see her figure as she steals from her work, stops at my door, and retreats with hesitating steps. She comes again, stands outside leaning against the wall, then slowly enters the room and sits down. With head bent, she plies her needle in silence; but soon stops her work, and looks out of the window through the rain at the blurred line of trees.
Only this—one hour of a rainy noon filled with shadows and song and silence.
4
While stepping into the carriage she turned her head and threw me a swift glance of farewell.
This was her last gift to me. But where can I keep it safe from the trampling hours?
Must evening sweep this gleam of anguish away, as it will the last flicker of fire from the sunset?
Ought it to be washed off by the rain, as treasured pollens are from heart-broken flowers?
Leave kingly glory and the wealth of the rich to death. But may not tears keep ever fresh the memory of a glance flung through a passionate moment?
"Give it to me to keep," said my song; "I never touch kings' glory or the wealth of the rich, but these small things are mine for ever."
5
You
