Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section One. Vaishnava Devotional Poetry

Twenty-two Poems of Bidyapati

1

Childhood and youth each other are nearing;

Her two eyes their office yield to the hearing.

Her speech has learned sweet maiden craft

And low not as of old she laughed

Her laughter murmurs. A moon on earth

Is dawning into perfect birth.

Mirror in hand she apparels her now

And asks of her sweet girl-comrades to show

What love is and what love does

And all shamed delight that sweet love owes.

And often she sits by herself and sees

Smiling with bliss her breasts’ increase,

Her own milk-breasts that, plums at first,

Now into golden oranges burst.

Day by day Love’s vernal dreams

Expand her lovely blossoming limbs.

Maadhuv, I saw a marvellous flower

Of girls; childhood and youth one power,

One presence grown in one body fair.

Foolish maiden, not thus declare

The oneness of these contraries.

Rather the two were yoked, say the wise.