Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

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

Selected Poems of Ganodas

3

(The Eternal replies that the beauty of human souls has driven out all care for or art of guidance in the phenomenal world and unless the latter reveal themselves naked of earthly desires and gratify his passion, they must sink in the Ocean of life.)

In vain my hands bale out the waves inleaping,

The boat is drowning, drowning;

A storm comes over the great river sweeping;

Huge billows rise up frowning.

The rudder from my hand is wrenched in shivers,

Death stares in all his starkness.

The boat is tossed and whirled, and the great river’s

Far banks plunge into darkness.

What can I do? Jamouna’s rising, surging

To take us to her clasp,

And the fierce rush of waters hurries urging

The rudder from my grasp.

Never I knew till now, nor any word in

The mouths of men foretold

That a girl’s beauty was too great a burden

For one poor boat to hold.

Come, make you bare, throw off your robes, each maiden;

Your naked beauties bring,

Lighten your bodies of their sweets o’erladen;

Then I’ll resume rowing.

Girls, you have made me drunk with milk and sweetness,

You have bewitched my soul.

My eyes can judge no more the wind’s fierce fleetness,

Nor watch the waters roll.

They are fixed in you, they are tangled in your tresses,

They will never turn again.

Where I should see the waves, I see your faces,

Your bosoms, not the rain.

You will not let me live, you are my haters,

Your eyes have caused my death.

I feel the boat sink down in the mad waters,

Down, down the waves beneath.