Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

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

Selected Poems of Bidyapati

17

Still in the highways wake nor dream

The citizens and with beam on beam

Moonlight clings to the universe.

New is her love, not to coerce

Nor lull, and yet with tremors she

The luminous wakeful night doth see.

What shifts will love on maids impose!

In a boy’s dress to the tryst she goes.

She has loosened showering her ordered hair

New-fastened in a crest to wear;

The cloth of her body she doth treasure

About her in another measure

And since her bounteous breasts disdain

The robe’s light government, she has ta’en

Over her heart an instrument.

In such guise to the grove she went

And in such guise met in the grove:

Her when he saw, the flower of love

Knew not though seen his darling bright,–

He doubted in his heart’s despite.

Only when those dear limbs he touches

Her sweet identity he vouches.

What then befell? Sweet Love the rather

How many mirthful things did father!