What are these wheels whose sudden thunderSri Aurobindo
Translations
CWSA.- Volume 5
Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section One.
Vaishnava Devotional Poetry
Selected Poems of Horo Thacoor
6
(The Eternal departing from the soul to his kingdom of action and its duties, the latter bemoans its loneliness.)
What are these wheels whose sudden thunder
Alarms the ear with ominous noise?
Who brought this chariot to tread under
Gocool, our Paradise?
Watching the wheels our hearts are rent asunder.
Alas! and why is Crishna standing
With Ocroor in the moving car?
To Mothura is he then wending,
To Mothura afar,
The anguish in our eyes not understanding?
What fault, what fault in Radha finding
Hast thou forsaken her who loved thee,
Her tears upon thy feet not minding?
Once surely they had moved thee!
O Radha’s lord, what fault in Radha finding?
But Shyama, dost thou recollect not,
That we have left all for thy sake?
Of other thought, of other love we recked not,
Labouring thy love to wake.
Thy love’s the only thought our minds reject not.
Hast thou forgot how we came running
At midnight when the moon was full,
Called by thy flute’s enamoured crooning,
Musician beautiful,
Shame and reproach for thy sake never shunning?
To please thee was our sole endeavour,
To love thee was our sole delight;
This was our sin; for this, O lover,
Dost thou desert us quite?
Is it therefore thou forsakest us for ever?
Ah why should I forbid thee so?
To Mothura let the wheels move thee,
To Mothura if thy heart go,
For the sad souls that love thee,
That thou art happy is enough to know.
But O with laughing face half-willing,
With eyes that half a glance bestow
Once only our sad eyes beguiling
Look backward ere thou go,
On Braja’s neatherdess once only smiling.
One last look all our life through burning,
One last look of our dear delight
And then to watch the great wheels turning
Until they pass from sight,
Hopeless to see those well-loved feet returning.
Thou wast, therefore forlorn we languish;
From empty breasts we make our moan.
Our souls with the last anguish
Smiting in careless beauty thou art gone!