SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Selected Poems of Jnanadas

V

The divine Soul pities, stays and comforts the human, which is set to toil in the heat and dust of life by its lord the world and its elders, the laws and ways of the world.

Neat-herdess, my star!

What has led to fields so far

The loveliest face and limbs ever created!

Love’s heart cries out beholding all

Thy potent beauty natural;

The world is with thy robe intoxicated.

Rest by me a space,

I will fan thy lovely face,

Lest the sun gaze on it with too much nearness.

Alas, thy little rosy feet,

How canst thou walk upon them, sweet.

My body aches to see their tired fairness.

Elders stone of heart!

They have sent to the mart

Far-distant in their callous greed of earning;

How shall thy own lord long avoid

Lightning whose breast of pity¹ void

Endured to send thee through this heat and burning.

Thy soft cheeks that burn

Laughing shyly thou dost turn

Away still, all thy shamefast bosom veiling.

This is no way to sell, sweet maid!

When such divine saleswomen trade,

Honey-sweet words help best their rich retailing.

¹ softness

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