Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

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

Selected Poems of Bidyapati

4

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.