SRI AUROBINDO
Translations
from Sanskrit and Other Languages
II. From Bengali
X
Ah, who has built this girl of nectarous face?
Ah, who this matchless, beauteous dove?
An omen and a bounteous boon of Love,
A garland of triumphant grace!
O glorious countenance and O shaded deep
Delicious eyes for purple extolled,
You dark-winged flutterers in that lily of gold
The splendour of the snake who keep!
Thy tendrilled down’s a snake, to drink cool winds
That from thy harbouring navel stirred,
But by the fancied bill of emperor bird
Cowed to thy breast’s hill-cavern winds.
The strong five-missiled Love with arrows three
The three worlds conquered; two remained
Which to thine eyes some cruel Fate did lend
To slay poor lovers’ hearts with thee.
A well of love is he who knoweth, O girl,
Her beauty I the poet sing
To Shiva Singha Rupnaraian the King
And Lachhima, his bosom’s pearl.