Kamadeva (SAP 21)

This poem is about vital love and desire, whose god as per Indian mythology is Kamadeva. The poem is written in Pondicherry around 1913.

KAMADEVA
When in the heart of the valleys and hid by the roses
          The sweet Love lies,
Has he wings to rise to his heavens or in the closes
          Lives and dies?

On the peaks of the radiant mountains if we should meet him
          Proud and free,
Will he not frown on the valleys? Would it befit him
          Chained to be?

Will you then speak of the one as a slave and a wanton,
          The other too bare?
But God is the only slave and the only monarch
          We declare.

It is God who is Love and a boy and a slave for our passion
          He was made to serve;
It is God who is free and proud and the limitless tyrant
          Our souls deserve.

[CWSA 2: 540]