Classic Poem

Urvasi

Thou art not Mother, art not Daughter, art not Bride!
Thou beautiful, comely One,
O Dweller in Paradise, Urvasi!
When Evening descends on the pastures, drawing about her tired body her golden cloth,
Thou lightest the evening lamp within no home.
With hesitant, wavering steps, with throbbing breast and downcast look,
Thou dost not go, smiling, fearful, to any beloved's bed,
In the hushed midnight.
Like the rising Dawn, thou art unveiled,
Unshrinking One!
Like some stemless flower, blooming in thyself,
When didst thou blossom, Urvasi?
That primal Spring, thou didst arise from the churning of Ocean,
In thy right hand nectar, venom in thy left.
The swelling, mighty Sea, like a serpent tamed with spells,
Drooping his thousand, towering hoods,
Fell at thy feet!
White as the kunda blossom, a naked beauty, adored by the King of Gods,
Thou flawless One!
Wast thou never bud, never maiden of tender years,
O eternally youthful Urvasi?
Sitting alone, under whose dark roof
Didst thou know childhood's play, toying with gems and pearls?
At whose side, in some chamber lit with the flashing of gems,
Lulled by the chant of the sea-waves, didst thou sleep, in coral bed,
A smile on thy pure face?
That moment when thou awakedst into the universe, thou wast framed of youth,
In full-blown beauty!

From age to age thou hast been the world's beloved,
O unsurpassed in loveliness, Urvasi!
Breaking their meditation, sages lay at thy feet the fruits of their penance;
Smitten with thy glance, the three worlds grow restless with youth;
The blinded winds blow thine intoxicating fragrance around;
Like the black bee, honey-drunken, the infatuated poet wonders, with greedy heart,
Lifting chants of wild jubilation!
While thou ... thou goest with jingling anklets and waving skirts,
Restless as lightning!

In the assembly of Gods, when thou dancest in ecstasy of joy,
O swaying Wave, Urvasi!
The companies of billows in mid-ocean swell and dance, beat on beat;
In the crests of the corn the skirts of Earth tremble;
From thy necklace stars fall off, in the sky;
Suddenly in the breast of man the heart forgets itself,
The blood dances!
Suddenly in the horizon thy zone bursts,
Ah, wild in abandon!

On the Sunrise Mount of Heaven thou art the embodied Dawn,
O world-enchanting Urvasi!
The slimness of thy form is washed with the tears of the Universe;
The ruddy hue of thy feet is painted with the heart's blood of the three worlds;
Thy tresses disrobed from their braid, thou hast placed thy light feet,
Thy lotus-feet, on the lotus of the blossomed
Desires of the universe!
Endless are thy masques in the mind's heaven,
O Comrade of dreams!

Ah, hear what crying and weeping everywhere rises for thee,
O cruel, deaf Urvasi!
Ah, will that Ancient Prime ever revisit this earth?
From the shoreless, unfathomed deep wilt thou ever rise again, with wet locks?
First in the First Dawn that Form will show!
In the startled gaze of the universe all thy limbs will weep,
The waters flowing from them!
Suddenly the vast Sea, in songs never heard before,
Will thunder with its waves!

She will not return, she will not return! That Moon of Glory has set,
She has made her home on the Mount of Setting, has Urvasi!
Therefore to-day, on earth, with the joyous breath of Spring
Mingles the long-drawn sigh of some eternal separation!
On the night of full moon, when the world brims with laughter,
Memory, from somewhere far away, pipes a flute that brings unrest,
The tears gush out!
Yet in that weeping of the spirit Hope wakes and lives;
Ah, Unfettered One!English