Playing she plays not, so newly shySri Aurobindo
Translations
CWSA.- Volume 5
Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section One.
Vaishnava Devotional Poetry
Twenty-two Poems of Bidyapati
5
Playing she plays not, so newly shy
She may not brook the passing eye.
Looking she looks not lest surmise
Laugh from her own girl-comrades’ eyes.
Hearken, O hearken, Maadhuv, to me.
Just is the case I bring to thee.
Radha today these eyes beheld;
A maid she is unparalleled.
O her face and its lovely lights!
O looks that ravish, O charm that invites!
Flower of ruby with lotus grows
In her vermeil lips that exceed the rose;
And with honey have snared her large twin eyes
Two shapes of bees that may not rise;
And her brow’s arch is as tho’ left slack
Love’s own bow in hue were black.
Saith the envoy girl whose words I teach
“The bloom of her limbs surpasseth speech.”