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| Painting by Ramesh Kumar |
i.
In the woodlands of the bright and early world
When love was to himself yet new and warm
And stainless, played like morning like a flower
Ruru with his young bride Priyumvada
Fresh-cheeked and dew-eyed white Priyumvada
Opened her budded heart of crimson bloom
To love, to Ruru; Ruru, a happy flood
Of passion round a lotus dancing thrilled
Blinded with his soul’s waves Priyumvada
To him the earth was a bed for his sole flower
To her all the world was filled with his embrace
Wet with the new rains the morning earth, released
From her fierce centuries and burning suns,
Lavished her breath in greenness; poignant flowers
Thronged all her eager breast, and her young arms
Cradled a childlike bounding life that played
I. And would not cease, nor ever weary grew
Of her bright promise; for all was joy and breeze
And perfume, colour and bloom and ardent rays
Of living, and delight desired the world
The earth was quick and pregnant tamelessly:
A free and unwalled race possessed her plains
Whose heats uncramped by bonds, whose unspoiled thoughts
At once replied to light. Foisoned the fields;
Lonely and rich the forests and the swaying
Of those unnumbered tops affected men
With thoughts to their vast music kin. Undamned
The virgin rivers moved towards the sea,
And mountains yet unseen and the people’s vague
ii.
Winged young imagination like an eagle
To strange beauty remote. And Ruru felt
The sweetness of the early earth as sap
All through him, and short life an aeon made
By boundless possibility, and love,
Sweetest of all unfathomable love,
A glory untired. As a bright bird comes flying
From airy extravagance to his own home,
And breasts his mate, and feels her all his goal,
So from boon sunlight and the fresh chill wave
Which swirled and lapped between the slumbering fields,
From forest pools and wanderings mid-leaves
Through emerald ever-new discoveries
Mysterious hillsides ranged and buoyant swift
Races with our wild brothers in the meads,
Came Ruru back to the white-bosomed girl
Strong-winged to pleasure, She all fresh and new
Rose to him, and he plunged into her charm
For neither to her honey and poignancy
Artlessly, interchanged, nor any limit
To the sweet physical delight of her
He found. Her eyes like deep infinite wells
Lured his attracted soul, and her touch thrilled
Not lightly, though so light; the joy prolonged
And the sweetness of the lingering of her lips
Was every time a nectar of surprise
To her lover; her smooth gleaming shoulder bared
In the darkness of her hair showed jasmine-bright,
While her kissed bosom by rich tumults stirred.
iii.
Was moved a sea that rocked beneath his heart
Then when her lips made him blind, soft siege
Of all her unseen body to his rule
Betrayed the ravishing realm of her white limbs
An empire for the glory of God.
He knew not whether he loved most her smile,
Her causeless tears or little angers swift
Whether held wet against him from the bath
Among her kindred lotuses , her cheeks
Soft to his lips and dangerous happy breasts
That vanquished all his strength with their desire,
Meeting his absence with her sudden face,
Or when the leaf-hid bird at night complained
Near their wreathed arbour on the moonlit lake,
Sobbing delight out her heart of bliss,
Or in his clasp of rapture laughing low
Of his close bosom bridal-glad and pleased
With passion and this fiery play of love,
Or breaking off like one who thinks of grief,
Wonderful melancholy in her eyes
Grown liquid and with wayward sorrow large.
Thus he in her found a warm world full of sweets,
And lived of ecstasy secure, nor deemed
Any new hour could match that early bliss.
But love has joys for spirits born divine
More bleeding-lovely than this thorn less rose.
iv.
That day he had left, while the east was dark,
Rising, her bosom and into the river
Swam out, exulting in the sting and swift
Sharp-edged desire around his limbs, and sprang
Wet to the bank, and streamed into the wood.
As a young horse upon the pastures glad
Feels greensward and the wind along his mane
And arches as he goes his neck, so went
In an immense delight of youth the boy
And shook his locks, joy-crested. Boundlessly
He revelled in swift air of life , a creature
Of wide and vigorous morning. Far he strayed
Tempting for flower and fruit branches in heaven,
And plucked , and flung away , and brighter chose,
Seeking comparisons for her bloom; and followed
New streams , and touched new trees , and felt slow beauty
And leafy secret change; for damp leaves,
Grey-green at first , grew pallid with the light
And warmed with the consciousness of sunshine near;
Then the whole daylight wandered in, and made
Hard tracts of splendour, enriched all hues,
But when a happy sheltered heat he felt
And heard contented voice of living things
Harmonious with the noon, he turned away swiftly
Went homeward yearning to Priyumvada,
And near his home emerging form the green leaves
He laughed towards the sun:’ O Father Sun.’
He cried, ‘How Good It Is To Live , To Love!’
v.
Surely our joy shall never end, nor we
Grow old, but like bright rivers or pure winds
Sweetly, continue, or revive with flowers
Or live as long as senseless trees,’
He dreamed, and said with a soft smile: ‘Lo, she!’
And she will turn from me with angry rears
Her delicate face more beautiful than storm
Or rainy moonlight. I will follow her,
And soothe her heart with sovereign flatteries;
Or rather all tyranny exhausts and taste
The beauty of her anger like a fruit
Vexing her soul with helplessness; then soften
Easily with quiet undenied demand
Of heart insisting upon heart; or else
Will reinvest her beauty bright with flowers,
Or with my hands her little feet persuade.
Then will her face be like a sudden dawn,
And flower compelled into reluctant smiles.’
He had not ceased when he beheld her. She,
Tearing a jasmine bloom with waiting hands,
Stood drooping, petulant, but heard at once
His footsteps and before she was aware,
A sudden smile of exquisite delight
Leaped to her mouth, and a great blush of joy
Surprised her cheeks. She for a moment stood
Beautiful with her love before she died;
And he laughed toward her .With a pitiful cry
She paled ; moaning , her stricken limbs collapsed.
But petrified , in awful dumb surprise,
vi.
He gazed; then waking with a bound was by her,
All panic expectation . As he came,
He saw a brilliant flash of coils evade
The sunlight, and with hateful gorgeous hood
Darted into green safety, hissing, death.
Voiceless he sank beside her and stretched out
His arms desperately touched her face
As if to attract her soul to live, and sought
Beseeching with his hands her bosom.O , she
Was warm , and cruel hope pierced him ;but pale
As jasmines fading on a girl’s sweet breast
Her cheek was, and forgot its perfect rose
Her eyes that clung to sunlight yet , with pain
Were large and feebly around his neck her arms
She lifted and, desiring his pale cheek
Against her bosom, sobbed out piteously,
‘Ah , Love!’ and stopped heart-broken ; then , ‘O Love!
Alas the green dear home that I must leave
So early! I was glad of love and kisses,
And thought that centuries would not exhaust
The deep embrace. And I have had so little
Of the joy and the wild day and the throbbing night,
Laughter, and tenderness, and strife and tears
I have not numbered half the brilliant birds
In one green forest, nor am familiar grown
With sunrise and the progress of the eyes,
Nor have with plaintive cries of birds made friends,
Cuckoo and rain lark and love-speak-to-me.
I have not yet learned the names of half the flowers
Around me; so few trees know me by my name;
Nor have I seen the stars so very often
That I should die. I feel a dreadful hand
Drawing me from touch of thy warm limbs
Into some cold vague mist, and all black night
Descends towards me . I no more am thine,
But go I know not where, and see the pale shapes
And gloomy countries and that terrible stream.
O Love , O Love , they take me from thee far,
And whether we shall find each other ever
In the wide dreadful territory of death,
I know not. Or thou wilt forget me quite,
And life compel thee into other arms.
Ah, come with me! I cannot bear to wander
In that cold cruel country alone,
Helpless and terrified , or sob by streams
Denied sweet sunlight and by thee unloved.’
Slower her voice came now , and over her cheek
Death paused; then sobbing like a little child
Too early from her bounding pleasures called,
The lovely discontented spirit stole
From her warm body white. Over her leaned
Roru , and waited for dead lips to move.
Still in the greenwood lay Priyumvada,
And Ruru rose not from her , but with eyes
Emptied of glory hung above his dead,
Only , without a word , without a tear.
Then the crowned wives of the forest came,
They who had feed her from maternal breasts
And grieved over the lovely body cold
And bore it form him; nor did he entreat
One last look or one last kiss , nor yet denied
What he had loved so well. They the dead girl
Into some distant greenness bore away.
vii.
But Ruru, while the stillness of the place
Remembered her, sat without voice. He heard
Through the great silence that was now his soul,
The forest sounds, a squirrel’s leap through leaves,
The cheeping of a bird just overhead,
A peacock with his melancholy cry
Complaining far away , and tossings dim
And slight unnoticeable stir of trees.
But all these were to him like distant things
And he alone in his heart’s void. And yet
No thought he had of her so lately lost,
Rather far pictures , trivial incidents
Of that old life before her delicate face
Had lived for him , dumbly distinct like thoughts
Of men that die, kept with long pomps his mind
Excluding the dead girl. So still he was,
The birds that flashed by him with their swift small wings,
Fanning him. The he moved, then rigorous
Memory through his body shuddering
Awoke , and he looked up and knew the place,
Saw the old trees and same flowers still bloom.
He felt the slight indifference of the earth
And all the lonely uselessness of pain.
Then lifting up the beauty of his brow
He spoke , with sorrow pale : ‘ O grim cold death!
But I will not like ordinary men
Satiate with cries , and falsely woo thee
And make my grief thy theatre, who lie
vii.
Prostrate beneath thy thunderbolts and make
Night witness of their moans , shuddering and crying
When sudden memories pierce them like swords,
And often starting up at a thought
Intolerable, pace a little , then
Sink exhausted by brief agony.
O secrecy terrific , darkness vast,
At which we shudder! Somewhere, I know not where
Somehow , I know not how, I shall confront
Thy gloom , tremendous spirit , and seize with hands
And prove that thou art and what man .’ He said,
And slowly to the forests he wandered. There
Long months he travelled between grief and grief ,
Relieving thoughts of her with every pace,
Measuring vast pain in his immortal mind
An his heart cried in him as when a fire
Roars through wide forests and the branches cry
Burning towards heaven in torture glorious.
So burned , so immense , his grief within him ; he raised
His young pure face all solemnised with pain,
Voiceless. Then fate was shaken , and the gods
Grieved for him , of his silence grown afraid.
Immortal Agni and to the Uswuttha tree
Shudders to bear the curse lest her young life
Pale with eclipse and all-creating love
Be to mere pain condemned. Divert the wrath
Into my boughs , Uswuttha – thou shalt be
My throne- glorious , though in eternal pangs,
Yet worth much pain to harbour divine fire.’’
So ended the young’s destroyers voice,
And the god consented quietly
In the same noon Ruru ; his mind had paused
Lured for a moment by soft wandering gleams
Into forgetfulness of grief ; for thoughts
Gentle and near-eyed whispering memories
So sweetly came , his blind heart dreamed she lived.
And Ruru turned illumined . For a moment,
One blissful moment he had felt ‘twas she.
So she had stolen up and touched
His curls with enamoured fingers small
Lingering, while the wind smote him with her hair
And her quick breath came to him like spring. Then he,
Turning , as one surprised with heaven , saw
Ready to his swift passionate grasp for her bosom
And body sweet expecting his embrace.
OH, now saw her not , but guilty tree
Shrinking; then grief back with a double crown
Arose and stained his face with agony
Nor silence her endured
‘ O Uswuttha –tree wantonly who thou hast mocked
My anguish with the wind , but thou no more
Have joy of the cool wind nor the green delight,
Shaken and that strong grasp of anguish , flung
His hands out to the sun: ‘ Priyumvada!’
He cried , and at that well loved sound there dawned
With overwhelming sweetness miserable
The old delightful times upon his mind
When he had called her by liquid name,
Where the voice loved to linger. He remembered
Half-angered and his speaking of her name
Masterfully as to a lovely slave
Rebellious who has erred; at that slow
Her sliding towards him and beautiful
Propitiating body as she sank down
With timid graspings deprecatingly
I n prostate warm surrender , her flushed cheeks
Upon his feet and little touches soft;
Or her long name uttered beseechingly,
And the swift leap of her body to him,
And the eyes of large repentance , and the weight
Of her wild bosom and lips unsatisfied;
Or hourly call for trivial needs,
Or sweet unneeded wanton summoning
Daily appealed that never staled nor lost
Its sudden music, and her lovely speed,
Sedulous occupation left , quick breathing
With great glad eyes and eager parted lips;
Or in deep quiet moments murmuring
That name like religion in her ear,
And her calmed look compelled to ecstasy
Or to the river luring her, or breathed
Over her dainty slumber , or secret sweet
The outpantings of her broken name
All these as rush unintermitting waves
Upon a swimmer overborne , broke on him
Relentless , things too happy to be endured
Till faint with recalled felicity
Low he moaned out : O pale Priyumvada’’
O dead fair flower ! yet living to my grief!
Out of my side , and burning , and blind,
O death , that showest not his face beneath the stars
But comest masked , and on our dear ones seizing
Fearest to wrestle equally with love !
To tell thy way. But if , O any strength
In lover’s constancy to torture dwell
Earthward to force a helping hand and such
Ascetic force be born of lover’s pain,
Let my dum pangs be heard. Whoe’er thou art,
Oh bright enemy , death whoever thou art
Lead me to that portal dim. For I
Have burned in fires as cruel as the fire
And lain upon sharper couch than swords.”
But Ruru passioned on , and came with eve
Half-naked , with bright limbs all beautiful –
Delicate they were , in sweetness absolute:
For every gleam and every soft strong curve
Magically compelled the eye, and smote
The heart to weakness .
In his hands he swung . A bow-
Not as human archers use:
For the string murmured like many bees,
And nameless fragrance made the casual air
He on Ruru that fair face
“Who art thou here , in forests wandering ,
And thy young face is solemnised
With pain? Luxuriously the gods have tortured
Thy heart to see such glorious beauty
Agonize in thy lips and brilliant eyes:
Joy and feel strong, clothing in brilliant fire
Tyrants in titan lands. Needs must her mouth
Have been pure honey and her bosom charm
And Ruru replied:
Ah , wherefore wilt thou ask of her to increase
Not a dream of my disastrous soul
Pictures of light and shade , of joys and tears,
Make ordinary moments wonderful
And common speech a charm : knit life to life
With interfusions of opposing souls
And sudden meetings and slow seasons
And drive her to the one face never seen
The wife’s obedient delight
And loving eager service never sated,
And happy lips , and worshipping soft eyes:
The hungry husband’s arms and use
Un wearying of old tender word and ways,
Joy of her hair , and silent pleasure felt
Of nearness to one dear familiar shape.
Nor any of but affections bright
Tears and dumb bitterness and pain unpitied
Racked thirsting jealously and kind hearts made stone
Dire vengeance and impossible cruelties
Cold lusts that linger , loves close kin to hate
And mad insatiable longings pale,
And passion blind as death and as deaf as swords
viiii.
The lover:”O Lover! O beautiful Love!
But if by strength is possible, of body
Or mind, battle of spirit of moving speech
Sweet speech which makes even cruelty grow kind,
Or yearning melody – for I have heard
As if even in her harp
Smitten, the cruel sweetness terrible
Coils taking no denial in the soul
And tears burst out in the hearts of men- and I,
Making perfect music , or with perfect words
Will strive with desperate hands
Match human strength against formidable death
But if with price , ah , what easier!Tears
Dreadful , innumerable I will absolve
Or pay with anguish through the centuries
Soul’s agony and torture physical
So her small hands about my face at last
I feel, close real hair sting me with life
And a palpable breathing bosom on me press
O ignorant fond lover , not with tears
Shalt thou persuade Death
He will not pity thy pangs : nor know
His stony eyes with music grow kind
Nor lovely words accepts . And how wilt thou
Wrestle with that grim shadow, who canst not save
One bloom from fading ? A sole thing
Demanded from all men living , sacrifice
Not without this shall any crown be grasped
Yet many sacrifices are there , oxen
And prayers , and wine , and pious flowers
Blood and fierce expense of mind , and pure
Incense of perfect actions , perfect thoughts,
O liberty as wide as the sun’s,
Or the ruthless labour or disastrous tears,
Exile or death or pain more hard than death,
Absence , a desert, from the faces loved;
Even sin may be a sumptuous sacrifice
Death loves not gifts ; he prefers visits
The pure heart as the stained . Lo, the just man
Helpless over his dead , nor all his virtues
Shall quicken that cold bosom ; near him the wild thief
Kissing dead lips that will not chide with him more
Life is all the pale ghost requires; with half thy life
Is the thread too early cut
Of that delightful spirit – half sweet life
O Ruru , such days
And yet how sweet they are , simply to breathe
How warm and sweet ! And ordinary things
How exquisite , thou then shalt learn when lost
How luminous the day was , mere sleep
How soft and friendly clasping tired limbs
And the deliciousness of common food
And the things indifferent thou then shalt want
Regret rejected beauty, brightness’s
Bestowed in vain , Wilt thou yield up ,O Lover?
Half thy sweet portion of this light , this gladness
Thy little insufficient share , and vainly
Give to another? She is not thyself-
Thou dost not feel the gladness of her bosom
Nor with the torture of thy body will she
Throb and cry out : at most with tender looks
And pitiful attempt to feel move near thee,
And weep how far she is from what she loves
Men live like stars that see each other in heaven
But one knows not the pleasure and the grief
The others feel : he lonely rapture has,
Or bears his incommunicable pain.
O Ruru there are many beautiful faces
But one thyself. Think then how thou shalt mourn
When thou hast shortened joy feelst at last
The shadow that thou hadst for such sweet store
Ruru retorted: “O idle words! For what is mere sunlight?’
Who would live on to extreme old age
Burden the impatient world , a weary old man
And look back on a selfish time ill-spent,
Exacting prodigal of great life
Small separate pleasures like an usurer
And no rich sacrifice and no large act.
Finding oneself in others, nor the sweet
Expense of nature her passionate gusts
Of love , of giving , first of the soul’s needs?
Who is so coldly wise , and does not feel,
How wasted were our grandiose human days
In personal unshared delights?
Why dost thou mock me? Friend of all the stars
How canst thou be a god of love and not know this?
That love burns down the body’s barriers cold
And laughs at the difference – playing with it merely
To make the joy sweeter? O too deeply I know
The lover is not different from the loved
Nor is their silence dumb to each other . He
Contains her heart and feels her body in his ,
He flushes with her heat , chills with her cold
And when she dies, Oh! When she dies , Oh me,
The emptiness , the maim! The life no life
The sweet and passionate oneness lost! And if ,
By shortening of great grief won back , O price
O easy ! O glad briefness , aeons may envy
For we shall live not fearing death , nor feel
As others yearning over loved at night
When the lamp flickers , sudden chills of dread
Terrible; nor at short absence agonise
Wrestling with mad imagination . Us
Serenely when the darkening shadow comes
One common sob shall end and soul clasp soul
Leaving the body with one dim kiss,
Then the joys of heaven we shall consort
Amid the gladness often touching hands
To make bliss sure ; or in the ghastly stream
If we must anguish , yet it shall not part
Our passionate limbs inextricably locked
By one strong agony, but we shall feel,
Hell’s pain half joy through sweet companionship
I weary or words . O wing me rather
To her , my eloquent princess of the spring
In whatsoever wintry shores she roam.”
Dangerous attraction and alarmed delight,
As at a peril near , he raised his eyes
ix.
Thither came Ruru , in a thin soft eve
A glimmering restlessness with voices large
All night with a dim motion gliding down
He felt the dark against his eyelids , felt
Akin a dream more real than daylight
As one who on a shoreless water sails
For ever to a part he shall not win
And when the darkness paled , he heard a moan
Loud Ruru cried across the murmur: “Hear me ,
O , Inarticulate grey ocean , hear,
If any cadence in thy infinite
Rumour was caught from lover’s moan , O sea,
For I would travel to the despairing shades,
The spheres of suffering where entangled dwell
Souls unreleased and the untimely dead
Who weep remembering ,. Thither , O guide me ,
Special disaster .Lo , this petalled fire
How freshly it blooms and lasts with my great pain!”
Horizon on horizon moved
Curving with monstrous menace over him
Alarmed , with anguished fast , the river Ganges deep
Veiled to his eyes , the goddess rose
She with a sound of waters cried to him ,
A thousand voices moaning in one pain :
“Lover , who feardest not sunlight to leave,
With me thou mayst behold that helpless spirit
Lost in the gloom , if still thy burning bosom
Have courage to endure nature’s night
In the dire lands where I am goddess I mourn
Hurting my heart with my own cruelty
I sent cries for you , not meant for human ears
Ruru chilled ;but terrible strong love
Was like a fiery finger in his breast
Pointing him on, so he went
With agony of the soul to the grey waste
He came glad of the pain of passage over ,
A country where no rain arrives
No happy labour of the plough
That silent darkness huge recede
Too hopeless far from grief , pale he arrived
Into a nether air by anguish moved
And heard within him cries that pierced the heart
O bargain hard! Death helps us not ,he leads alarmed
O miserable race of men , foredoomed to live the earth and live brief days
Oh my sweet flower, are you not overwhelmed by this flood?
Ah me , I will haste and deeply plunge
Into its hopelessness and either bring
Thy warm beauty back beneath the stars
Or find thee out and clasp thy tortured bosom
And kiss thy sweet wrung lips and hush thy cries
Love shall draw half thy pain into thy limbs ,
Then we shall triumph glad of agony
He spoke vain words into the listless air:
My soul yearns with sorrow , yet ah, reveal!
If dwell my love in your sad nation lost.
Well may you know her , O spirits
She is the most beautiful of all that died,
By sweetness recognisable . Her name
The sunshine knew, speaking this made tears way
Were she here , her lids run to me
With the old unaltered eyes to my own
We should have understood each other and walked
Silently , hand in hand , almost content
But he did not find her ,
xi.
When he woke , he heard the coil insist
On sweetness and the voice of happy things
Content with sunlight. The warm sense was around him
Of old essential earth , known hues and customs
Near him repeated fierily the note of life
Thrilling he felt beneath his bosom , her;
Oh , warm and breathing were those rescued limbs
With great black hair and real and cheek’s
Old softness and her mouth a dewy rose
For many moments comforting his soul.
With her jasmine body sun ensnared
He fed his longing eyes and , half in doubt
With touches satisfied himself from her
Hesitating he kissed her eyelids. Sighing
She woke , her eyes looked upward to his
She stretched her arms up , yearning and their souls embraced
The twixt brief sobbing laughter and blissful tears
Clinging with all her limbs to him , “Oh , Love ,
The green green world ! the warm sunlight ! and ceased ,
Finding no words; but the earth breathed around them.
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