O life is sweet but youth more bright.Sri Aurobindo
Translations
CWSA.- Volume 5
Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section One.
Vaishnava Devotional Poetry
Selected Poems of Bidyapati
18
O life is sweet but youth more bright.
O life, it is youth and youth is delight.
And what is youth if it be not this,
Love, true love, and love’s long kiss?
Love that the noble heart conceives
Will leave thee never till life leaves.
Every day love greater is.
Of all girl-lovers thou art crown,
Caanou of youth the sole renown.
When hardest holiest deeds accrue,
Meet in this world two lovers true.
Two brief words its only keys;
Murmur but these and thou shalt hold
Secret delights a thousandfold.
So true a lover all wide earth
To another such gave never birth,
And Braja’s hearts with love are wild
Of the noble gracious child.
Haste to thy king, sweet, pay him duty
Of thy loving heart and beauty.