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SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Songs of Bidyapati

VII

A little and a little now

See the bright bud half open blow.

Her swift and wilful feet grown wise

Yield their rudderless gait to the eyes.

Ever her hand to her bosom’s dress

Clings to control its waywardness.

Afraid to utter her shy hushed thought

Her comrade-girls she questions not.

Madhav, how shall faltering word

Her sweet and twilight age record?

Love, even Love, beholding her

In his own bonds her captive were.

Nay but the lord of all desire

Her heart’s precincts raising higher

Has set for passion’s sacred duty

Altars of surpassing beauty.

Love’s speech her listening heart doth stop

As the hunter’s song the antelope.

Two powers dispute this beauteous prize.

Nought one deems gained while aught there is

To gain, nor the other failure owns

While yet he holds to his golden thrones.

Still with sweet violence she clings

To her loved childhood’s parting wings.