Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

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

Twenty-two Poems of Bidyapati

2

Day by day her milk-breasts drew splendour,

Wider her hips grew, her middle more slender.

Love has enlarged her childlike gaze.

Yea, all grace of childhood and childhood’s ways

Fall from their thrones and take sweet flight.

Her breasts before were plums of light,

Golden oranges next and then

As bodiless Love made bloom with pain

Of increase her body day by day,

Pomegranate seedcities were they.

Their fair maturities now begin,

Now are they fruits-of-opulence twin.

Maadhuv, I sought thy lovely lady,

Bathing I found her in woodland shady.

Coiled on her heart but not to drape

Her thin dress clung to her lovely shape.

Blest were his eyes who had seen her thus

And his whole life made felicitous.

Over her bosom her great hair floods

With curls divine two golden gods.

True love must his be, O youth, who would play,

Her darling and joy, with this beautiful may.