SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Songs of Bidyapati

III

Now and again a sidelong look

Along her lashes its shy curve took.

Now and again her thin white dress

O’erlies like dust all her loveliness.

Now she laughs divine and clear

And her pearly teeth like stars appear,

And now to hide in her robe make shift.

For a little her startled feet run swift

But soon that bounding gait subsides

And she in maiden gravity glides.

Love’s scholar she and newly set

To his first lesson and alphabet.

Where her bosom’s buds are hardly seen

Now she draws fast her robe to screen,

Now careless leaves. In her limbs divine

Child and woman meet and twine.

Nor mark I yet whether older she

Of girlhood or younger of infancy.

Beautiful Krishna, youth in her

Its childhood begins, these signs declare.