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In woodlands of the bright and early world,
When
love was to himself yet new and warm
And
stainless, played like morning with 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 this sole flower,
To her all the world was filled with his embrace.
Wet
with 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
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.
Then Earth was quick and pregnant tamelessly;
A free and unwalled race possessed her plains
Whose hearts 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. Undammed
The
virgin rivers moved towards the sea,
And mountains yet unseen and peoples vague
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,
Page-231
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 and infinite wells
Lured
his attracted soul, and her touch thrilled
Not
lightly, though so light; the joy prolonged
And
sweetness of the lingering of her lips
Was every time a nectar of surprise
To
her lover; her smooth-gleaming shoulder bared
In
darkness of her hair showed jasmine-bright,
While
her kissed bosom by rich tumults stirred
Was
a moved sea that rocked beneath his heart,
Then
when her lips had 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 a 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 from 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
Page-232
Grown
liquid and with wayward sorrow large.
Thus
he in her found a warm world of sweets,
And
lived of ecstasy secure, nor deemed
Any new hour could match. that early bliss.
But Iove has joys for spirits born divine
More bleeding-lovely than his thornless rose.
That day he had left, while yet the east was dark,
Rising,
her bosom and into the river
Swan 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 the damp leaves,
Grey-green at first, grew pallid with the light
And warmed with consciousness of sunshine near;
Then the whole daylight wandered in, and made
Hard
tracts of splendour, and enriched all hues.
But
when a happy sheltered heat he felt
And
heard contented voice of living things
Harmonious with the noon, he turned and swiftly
Went homeward yearning to Priyumvada,
And near his home emerging from green leaves.
He laughed towards the sun: "O father Sun,”
He
cried, "how good it is to live, to love.
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 at least as long as senseless trees."
He
dreamed, and said with a soft smile: "Lo, she!
And she will turn from me with angry tears
Page-233
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 exhaust 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 towards her. With a pitiful cry
She paled; moaning, her stricken limbs collapsed.
But petrified, in awful dumb surprise,
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 and 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 round 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!
Page-234
Alas
the green dear
home that
I must
leave
So early!
I was so glad of love and kisses,
And thought
that
centuries would not exhaust
The deep
embrace. And I have had so little
Of
joy and the
wild
day and 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 eves,
Nor have
with
plaintive cries of birds made friends,
Cuckoo
and
rainlark
and love-speak-to-me.
I
have not
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 the 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 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 all 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
Ruru,
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 great forest came,
Page-235
They
who had fed her from maternal breasts,
And
grieved over the lovely body cold,
And bore it from him; nor did he entreat
One
last look nor one kiss, nor yet denied
What
he had loved so well. They the dead girl
Into
some distant greenness bore away.
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 flashed by him with their swift small wings,
Fanning
him. Then he moved, then rigorous
Memory
through all his body shuddering
Awoke, and he looked up and knew the place,
And recognised greenness immutable,
And saw old trees and the same flowers still bloom.
He
felt the bright indifference of 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 thee with cries, and falsely woo thee,
Arid make my grief thy theatre, who lie
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 as at a thought
Page-236
Intolerable,
pace
a
little, then
Sink
down
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 what thou art and what man." He said,
And
slowly
to the forests wandered. There
Long
months he travelled between grief and grief,
Reliving
thoughts of her with every pace,
Measuring vast pain in his immortal mind.
And 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, 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.
Therefore from peaks divine came flashing down
Immortal
Agni and to the Uswuttha-tree,
Cried
in
the Voice that slays the world: "O tree
That
liftest thy enormous branches able
To
shelter armies, more than armies now
Shelter,
be famous, house a brilliant God.
For the grief grows in Ruru’s breast up-piled,
As
wrestles with its anguished barricades
In
silence an impending flood, and Gods
Immortal
grow afraid. For earth alarmed
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 thy boughs, Uswuttha – thou shalt be
My throne – glorious, though in eternal pangs,
Yet
worth muth pain to harbour divine fire."
So ended the young pure destroyer’s voice,
And the
dumb
god consented silently.
In
the same
noon
came 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
Page-237
So
sweetly came, his blind heart dreamed she lived.
Slow
the Uswuttha-tree bent down its leaves,
And
smote his cheek, and touched his heavy hair.
And
Ruru turned illumined. For a moment,
One
blissful moment he had felt ’twas she.
So had she often stolen up and touched
His curls with her 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 her bosom
And body sweet expecting his embrace.
Oh, now saw her not, but the guilty tree
Shrinking; then grief back with a double crown
Arose
and stained his face with agony.
Nor silence he endured, but the dumb force
Ascetic and inherited, by sires
Fierce-musing earned, from the boy’s bosom blazed.
"O
Uswuttha-tree, wantonly who hast mocked
My anguish with the wind, but thou no more
Have joy of the cool wind nor green delight,
But live thy guilty leaves in fire, so long
As Aryan wheels by thy doomed shadow vast
Thunder
to war, nor bless with cool wide waves
Lyric
Saruswathi nations impure."
He
spoke, and the vast tree groaned through its leaves,
Recognising
its fate; then smouldered; lines
Of living fire rushed up the girth and hissed
Serpentine
in the unconsuming leaves;
Last, all Hutashan in his chariot armed
Sprang on the boughs and blazed into the sky,
And wailing all the great tormented creature
Stood wide in agony; one half was green
And earthly, the other a weird brilliance
Filled with the speed and cry of endless flame.
But he, with the fierce rushing-out of power
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
Page-238
Upon
his mind the old delightful times
When
he had called her by her liquid name,
Where the voice loved to linger. He remembered
The
chompuc bushes where she turned away
Half-angered,
and his speaking of her name
Masterfully
as
to a lovely slave
Rebellious
who has erred; at that the slow
Yielding of her small head, and after a little
Her
sliding towards him and beautiful
Propitiating
body as she sank down
With timid graspings deprecatingly
In prostrate warm surrender, her flushed cheeks
Upon
his
feet and little touches soft;
Or
her long name uttered beseechingly,
And the swift leap of all her body to him,
And eyes of large repentance, and the weight
Of
her wild
bosom
and lips unsatisfied;
Of hourly call for little trivial needs,
Of
sweet
unneeded
wanton summoning,
Daily
appeal
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
a religion in her ear,
And
her calm look compelled to ecstasy;
Or to the
river
luring her, or breathed
Over
her
dainty
slumber, or secret sweet
Bridal
outpantings
of her broken name.
All
these
as
rush unintermitting waves
Upon
a swimmer overborne, broke on him
ReIentless,
things
too happy to be endured,
Till
faint with the recalled felicity
Low
he
moaned
out: "O pale Priyumvada!
O
dead
fair
flower! yet living to my grief!
But
I could only slay the innocent tree,
Powerless when power should have been. Not such
Was
Bhrigu
from
whose sacred strength I spring,
Nor
Bhrtgu’s
son,
my father, when he blazed
Out
from
Puloma’s side, and burning, blind,
Page-239
Fell
like a tree, the ravisher unjust.
But I degenerate from such sires. O Death
That
showest not thy face beneath the stars,
But
comest masked, and on our dear ones seizing
Fearest
to wrestle equally with love!
Nor from thy gloomy house any come back
To tell thy way. But O, if any strength
In lover’s constancy to torture dwell
Earthward to force a helping god and such
Ascetic
force be born of lover’s pain,
Let my dumb pangs be heard. Whoe’er thou art,
O
thou bright enemy of Death descend
And lead me to that portal dim. For I
Have burned in fires cruel as the fire
And lain upon a sharper couch than swords."
He
ceased, and heaven thrilled, and the far blue
Quivered
as with invisible downward wings.
But Ruru passioned on, and came with eve
To secret grass and a green opening moist
In a cool lustre. Leaned upon a tree
That bathed in faery air and saw the sky
Through bra:nches and a single parrot loud
Screamed
from its top, there stood a golden boy,
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 such as human archers use:
For the string moved and murmured like many bees,
And
nameless fragrance made the casual air
A peril. He on Ruru that fair face
Turned, and his steps with lovely gesture chained.
"Who
art thou here, in forests wandering,
And thy young exquisite face is solemnised
With pain? Luxuriously the Gods have tortured
Thy
heart to see such dreadful glorious beauty
Agonize
in thy lips and brilliant eyes:
As tyrants in the fierceness of others’ pangs
Page-240
Joy and
feel strong, clothing with brilliant fire,
Tyrants in Tittn lands. Needs must her mouth
Have been pure honey and her bosom a charm,
Whom thou desirest seeing not the green
And common lovely sounds hast quite forgot."
And Ruru, mastered by the God, replied:
“I know thee by thy cruel beauty bright,
Kama, who makest many worlds one fire.
Ah, wherefore wilt thou ask of her to increase
The passion and regret? Thou knowest, great love!
Thy
nymph her mother, if thou truly art he
And not a dream of my disastrous soul."
But with the thrilled eternal smile that makes
The spring, the lover of Rathi golden-limbed
Replied to .Ruru, "Mortal, I am he;
I am that Madan who inform the stars
With lustre and on life’s wide canvas fill
Pictures of light and shade, of joy 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 sorceries:
Wing the boy bridegroom to that panting breast,
Smite
Gods with mortal faces, dreadfully
Among
great beautiful kings and watched by eyes
That
burn, force on the virgin’s fainting limbs
And drive her to the one face never seen,
The one breast meant eternally for her.
By me come wedded sweets, by me the wife’s
Busy
delight and passionate obedience,
And loving eager service never sated,
And happy lips, and worshipping soft eyes:
And
mine the husband’s hungry arms and use
Unwearying of old tender words and ways.
Joy of her hair, and silent pleasur felt
Of nearness to one dear familiar shape. I
Nor only these, but many affections bright
And
soft glad things cluster around my name.
I
plant fraternal tender yearnings, make
The sister’s sweet attractiveness and leap
Page-241
Of
heart towards imperious kindred blood,
And
the young mother’s passionate deep look,
Earth’s
high similitude of One not earth,
Teach filial heart-beats strong. These are my gifts
For
which men praise me, these my glories calm:
But
fiercer shafts I can, wild storms blown down
Shaking
fixed minds and melting marble natures,
Tears
and dumb bitterness and pain unpitied,
Racked thirsting jealousy and kind hearts made stone:
And
in undisciplined huge souls I sow
Dire vengeance and impossible cruelties,
Cold lusts that linger and fierce fickleness,
The loves close kin to hate, brute violence
And mad insatiable longings pale,
And passion blind as death and deaf as swords.
O mortal, all deep-souled desires and all
Yearnings immense are mine, so much I can."
So as he spoke, his face grew wonderful
With vast suggestion, his human-seeming limbs
Brightened
with a soft splendour: luminous hints
Of
the concealed divinity transpired.
But soon with a slight discontented frown:
"So much I can, as even the great Gods learn.
Only
with death I wrestle in vain, until
My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt.
Mortal,
I am the light in stars, of flowers
The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades
Creation:
but behind me, older than me,
He comes with night and cold tremendous shade.
Hard
is the way to him, most hard to find,
Harder to tread, for perishable feet
Almost impossible. Yet, O fair youth,
If thou must needs go down, and thou art strong
In
passion and in constancy, nor easy
The soul to slay that has survived such grief –
Steel
then thyself to venture, armed by Love.
Yet listen first what heavy trade they drive
Who would win back their dead to human arms."
So
much the God; but swift, with eager eyes
And panting bosom and glorious flushed face,
Page-242
The
lover: "O great Love! O beautiful Love!
But
if by strength is possible, of body
Or
mind, battle of spirit of moving speech,
Sweet
speech that makes even cruelty grow kind,
Or
yearning melody – for I have heard
That when Saruswathi in heaven her harp
Has smitten, the cruel sweetness terrible
Coils taking no denial through the soul,
And tears burst from the hearts of Gods – then I,
Making great music, or with perfect words,
Will strive, or staying him with desperate hands
Match human strength ‘gainst formidable Death.
But if with price, ah God! 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
palpable breathing bosom on me press."
Then
with a lenient smile the mighty God:
”O ignorant fond lover, not with tears
Shalt
thou persuade immitigable Death.
He will not pity all thy pangs: nor know
His stony eyes with music to grow kind,
Nor lovely words accepts. And how wilt thou
Wrest1e
with that grim shadow, who canst not save
One
bloom from fading? A sole thing the Gods
Demand
from all men living, sacrifice:
Nor without this shall any crown be grasped.
Yet many sacrifices are there, oxen,
And prayers, and Soma wine, and pious flowers,
Blood and the fierce expense of mind, and pure
Incense
of
perfect actions, perfect thoughts,
Or
liberality
wide as the sun’s,
Or
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
Acceptable
for unholy fruits. But none
Of
these
the
inexorable
shadow asks:
Page-243
Alone
of gods Death loves not gifts: he visits
The
pure heart as the stained. Lo, the just man
Bowed
helpless over his dead, nor all his virtues
Shall quicken that cold bosom: near him the wild
Marred
face and passionate and will not leave
Kissing
dead lips that shall not chide him more.
Life
the pale ghost requires: with half thy life
Thou
mayst protract the thread too early cut
Of that delightful spirit,- half sweet life.
O
Ruru, lo, thy frail precarious 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 daylight was, mere sleep
How soft and friendly clasping tired limbs,
And the deliciousness of common food.
And things indifferent thou then shalt want,
Regret
rejected beauty, brightnesses
Bestowed in vain. Wilt thou yield up, O lover,
Half
thy sweet portion of this light and gladness,
Thy
little insufficient share, and vainly
Give to another? She is not thyself:
Thou
dost not feel the gladness in 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 aifd feelst at last
The
shadow that thou hadst for such sweet store."
He
ceased with a strange d6ubtfullobk. But swift
Came
back the lover’s voice, like passionate rain.
"O
idle words! For what is mere sunlight?
Who would live on into extreme old age,
Burden the impatient world, a weary old man,
Page-244
And
look
back
on a
selfish time ill-spent
Exacting
out
of prodigal 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 in her passionate gusts
Of love and giving, first of the soul’s needs?
Who is so coldly wise, and does not feel
How wasted were our grandiose human days
In
prudent
personal unshared delights?
Why
dost thou mock me, friend of all the stars?
How
canst thou be love’s god and know not this,
That
love burns down the body’s barriers cold
And
laughs
at difference
-
playing
‘with it merely
To
make 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
Easy!
O glad briefness, aeons may envy!
For we shall live not fearing death, nor feel
As others yearning over the 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 in a long dim kiss.
.
Then
in 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.
God
Love, I weary of words. O wing me rather
Page-245
To
her, my eloquent princess of the spring,
In whatsoever wintry shores she roam."
He ceased with eager forward eyes; once more
A light of beauty immortal through the limbs
Gleaming
of the boy-god and soft sweet face,
Glorifying
him, flushed, and he replied:
"Go then, O thou dear youth, and bear this flower
In thy hand warily. For thou shalt come
To that high meeting of the Ganges pure
With vague and violent Ocean. There arise
And loudly appeal my brother, the wild sea."
He spoke and stretched out his immortal hand,
And Ruru’s met it. All his young limbs yearned
With dreadful rapture shuddering through them. He
Felt
in his fingers subtle uncertain bloom,
A quivering magnificence, half fire,
Whose
petals changed like flame, and from them breathed
Dangerous
attraction and alarmed delight,
As at a peril near. He raised his eyes,
But the green place was empty of the God.
Only the faery tree looked up at heaven
Through branches, and with recent pleasure shook.
Then
over fading earth the night was lord.
But
from Shatudru and
Bipasha,
streams
Once
holy, and loved Iravathi and swift
Clear Chandrabhaga and Bitosta’s toil
For man, went Ruru to bright sumptuous lands
By Aryan fathers not yet paced, but wild,
But virgin to our fruitful human toil,
Where nature lay reclined in dumb delight
Alone with woodlands and the voiceless hills.
He with the widening yellow Ganges came,
Amazed, to trackless countries where few tribes,
Kirath
and Poundrian, warred, worshipping trees
And
the great serpent. But robust wild earth,
But forests with their splendid life of beasts
Savage mastered hose strong inhabitants.
Thither came Ruru. In a thin soft eve
Ganges spread far her multitudinous waves,
Page-246
A
glimmering
restlessness with voices large,
And
from the forests of that half-seen bank
A
boat
came heaving over it, white-winged,
With a sole silent helmsman marble-pale.
Then
Ruru by his side stepped in; they went
Down
the mysterious river and beheld
The great banks widen out of sight. The world
Was water and the skies to water plunged.
All
night
with a dim motion gliding down
He
felt
the dark against his eyelids; felt,
As
in a dream more real than daylight,
The helmsman with his dumb and marble face
Near him and moving wideness all around,
And that continual gliding dimly on,
As one who on a shoreless water sails
For
ever
to a port he shall not win.
But
when the darkness paled, he heard a moan
Of mightier waves and had the wide great sense
Of Ocean
and
the depths below our feet.
But
the boat stopped; the pilot lifted on him
His marble gaze coeval with the stars.
Then
in the white-winged boat the boy arose
And
saw around him the vast sea all grey
And
heaving in the pallid dawning light.
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,
Open
thy abysses to my mortal tread.
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,
No
despicable wayfarer, but Ruru,
But son of a great Rishi, from all men
On
earth selected for peculiar pangs,
Special
disaster. Lo, this petalled fire,
How
freshly it blooms and lasts with my great pain!"
He
held the flower out subtly glimmering.
And
like a living thing the huge sea trembled,
Page-247
Then
rose, calling, and filled the sight with waves,
Converging
all its giant crests; towards him
Innumerable
waters loomed and heaven
Threatened.
Horizon on horizon moved
Dreadfully
swift; then with a prone wide sound
All
Ocean hollowing drew him swiftly in,
Curving
with monstrous menace over him.
He down the gulf where the loud waves collapsed
Descending,
saw with floating hair arise
The daughters of the sea in pale green light,
A million mystic breasts suddenly bare,
And came beneath the flood and stunned beheld
A
mute stupendous march of waters race
To reach some viewless pit beneath the world.
Ganges he saw, as men predestined rush
Upon a fearful doom foreseen, so ran,
Alarmed, with anguished speed, the river vast.
Veiled
to his eyes the triple goddess rose.
She with a sound of waters cried to him,
A thousand voices moaning with one pain:
"Lover,
who fearedst 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 great Nature’s night
In the dire lands where I, a goddess, mourn
Hurting
my heart with my own cruelty."
She darkened to the ominous descent,
Unwilling, and her once so human waves
Sent forth a cry not meant for living ears.
And Ruru chilled; but terrible strong love
Was like a fiery finger in his breast
Pointing him on; so he through horror went
Conducted
by inexorable sound.
For monstrous voices to his ear were close,
And bodiless terrors with their dimness seized him
In
an obscurity phantasmal. Thus
With agony of soul to the grey waste
He came, glad of the pain of passage over,
As men who through the storms of anguish strive
Into
abiding tranquil dreariness
Page-248
And
draw
sad breath assured; to the grey waste,
Hopeless
Patala, the immutable
Country,
where
neither sun nor rain arrives,
Nor
happy
labour
of the human plough
Fruitfully
turns
the soil, but in vague sands
And
indeterminable
strange rocks and caverns
That into silent blackness huge recede,
Dwell the great serpent and his hosts, writhed forms,
Sinuous,
abhorred; through many horrible leagues
Coiling
in a half darkness. Shapes he saw,
And
heard the hiss and knew the lambent light
Loathsome,
but
passed compelling his strong soul.
At last
through those six tired hopeless worlds,
To hopeless far for grief, pale he arrived
Into a
nether
air by anguish moved,
And heard
before
him cries that pierced the heart,
Human,
not to be borne, and issued shaken
By the great river accursed. Maddened it ran,
Anguished, importunate, and in its waves
The drifting ghosts their agony endured.
There Ruru
saw
pale faces float of kings
And
gandiose
victors and revered high priests
And
famous women. Now rose from the wave
A
golden shuddering arm and now a face.
Torn piteous sides were seen and breasts that quailed.
Over
them moaned the penal waters on;
And had no joy of their fierce cruelty.
Then Ruru, his young cheeks with pity wan,
Half moaned: "O miserable race of men,
With violent and passionate souls you come
Foredoomed upon the earth and live brief days
In fear and anguish, catching at stray beams
Of sunlight, little fragrances of flowers;
Then from your spacious earth in a great horror
Descend into this night, and here too soon
Must expiate your few inadequate joys.
O bargain hard! Death helps us not. He leads
Alarmed, all shivering fr6m his chill embrace,
The naked spirit here. Oh my sweet flower,
Art thou too whelmed in this fierce wailing flood?
Page-249
Ah
me! But I will haste and deeply plunge
Into its hopeless pools and either bring
Thy old 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 my limbs;
Then we shall triumph glad of agony."
He ceased and one replied close by his ear:
"O thou who troublest with thy living eyes
Established
death, pass on. She whom thou seekest
Rolls
not in the accursed tide. For late
I saw her mid those pale inhabitants
Whom bodily anguish visits not, but thoughts
Sorrowful
and dumb memories absolve,
And martyrdom of scourged hearts quivering."
He turned and saw astride the dolorous flood
A mighty bridge paved with mosaic fire,
All restless, and a woman clothed in flame,
With hands calamitous that held a sword,
Stood of the quaking passage sentinel.
Magnificent and dire her burning face.
"Pass on," she said once more, "O Bhrigu’s son;
The flower protects thee from my hands’." She stretched
One
arm towards him and with violence
Majestic over the horrid arch compelled.
Unhurt, though shaking from her touch, alone
He stood upon an inner bank with strange
Black dreary mosses covered and perceived
A dim and level plain without one flower.
Over it paced a multitude immense
With gentle faces occupied by pain;
Strong men were there and grieving mothers, girls
With
early beauty in their limbs and young
Sad children of their childlike faces robbed.
Naked they paced with falling hair and gaze
Drooping
upon their bosoms, weak as flowers
That die for want of rain unmurmuring.
Always a silence was upon the place:
But Ruru came among them. Suddenly.
One felt him there and looked, and as a wind
Page-250
Moves
over a still field of patient corn,
And the ears stir and shudder and look up
And bend innumerably flowing, so
All those dumb spirits stirred and through them passed
One shuddering motion of raised faces; then
They streamed towards him without sound and caught
With desperate hands his robe or touched his hair
Or
strove to feel upon them living breath.
Pale girls and quiet children came and knelt
And with large sorrowful eyes into his looked.
Yet
with their silent passion the cold hush
Moved not; but Ruru’s human heart half burst
With burden of so many sorrows; tears
Welled from him; he with anguish lJnderstood
That terrible and wordless sympathy
Of dead souls for the living. Then he turned
His eyes and scanned their lovely faces strange
For
that one face and found it not. He paled,
And spoke vain words into the listless air:
“O spirits once joyous, miserable race,
Happier if the old gladness were forgot!
My soul yearns with your sorrow. Yet ah! reveal
If dwell my love in your sad nation lost.
Well
may you know her, O wan beautiful spirits!
But she most beautiful of all that died,
By sweetness recognisable. Her name
The
sunshine knew." Speaking his tears made way:
But
they wIth dumb lips only looked at him,
A
vague and empty mourning in their eyes.
He
murmured low: "Ah, folly! were she here,
Would she not first have felt me, first have raised
Her lids and run to me, leaned back her face
Of silent sorrow on my breast and looked
With the old altered eyes into my own
And striven to make my anguish understand?
Oh joy, had she been here! for though her lips
Of their old excellent music quite were robbed,
yet
her dumb passion would have spoken. to me;
We
should have understood each other and walked
Silently
hand in hand, almost content."
Page-251
He
said and passed through those untimely dead.
Speechless
they followed him with clinging eyes.
Then
to a solemn building weird he came
With grave colossal pillars round. One dome
Roofed
the whole brooding edifice, like cloud,
And
at the door strange shapes were pacing, armed.
Then
from their fear the sweet and mournful dead
Drew
back, returning to their wordless grief.
But Ruru to the perilous doorway strode,
And those disastrous shapes upon him raised
Their bows and aimed; but he held out Love’s flower,
And
with stern faces checked they let him pass.
He entered and beheld a silent hall
Dim and unbounded; moving then like one
Who up a dismal stair seeks ever light,
Attained a dais brilliant doubtfully
With flaming pediment and round it coiled
Python and Naga monstrous, Joruthtaru,
Tuxuc and Vasuk:i himself, immense,
Magic
Carcotaca all flecked with fire;
And many other prone destroying shapes
Coiled. On the wondrous dais rose a throne,
And he its pedestal whose lotus hood
With ominous beauty crowns his horrible
Sleek folds, great Mahapudma; high displayed
He bears the throne of Death. There sat supreme
With
those compassionate and lethal eyes,
Who many names, who many natures holds;
Yama, the strong pure Hades sad and subtle,
Dharma, who keeps the laws of old untouched,
Critanta, who ends all things and at last
Himself
shall end. On either side of him
The
four-eyed dogs mysterious rested prone,
Watchful,
with huge heads on their paws advanced;
And
emanations of the godhead dim
Moved near him, shadowy or serpentine,
Vast Time and cold irreparable Death.
Then Ruru came and bowed before the throne;
And swaying all those figures stirred as shapes
Upon a tapestry moved by the wind,
Page-252
And
the sad voice was heard: "What breathing man
Bows
at the throne of Hades? By what force,
Spiritual
or communicated, troubles
His living beauty the dead grace of Hell?"
And one replied who seemed a neighbouring voice:
“He
has the blood of Gods and Titans old.
An Apsara his mother liquid-orbed
Bore
to the youthful Chyavan’s strong embrace
This
passionate face of earth with Eden touched.
Chyavan was Bhngu’s child, Puloma bore,
The Titaness, – Bhrigu, great Brahma’s son.
Love
gave the flower that help by anguish; therefore :
He
chilled not with the breath of Hades nor
The
cry of the infernal stream ma e stone."
But at the name of Love all hell was moved.
Death’s throne half faded into twilight; hissed
The Phantoms serpentine as if in pain,
And the dogs raised their dreadful heads. Then spoke
Yama:
"And what needs Love in this pale realm,
The warm great Love? All worlds his breath confounds,
Mars
solemn order and old steadfastness.
But not in Hell his legates come and go;
His vernal jurisdiction to bare Hell
Extends not. This last world resists his power
Youthful, anarchic. Here will he enlarge
Tumult and wanton joys?" The voice replied:
“Menaca
momentary on the earth,
Heaven’s Apsara by the fleeting hours beguiled
Played in the happy hidden glens; there bowed
To yoke of swift terrestrial joys she bore,
Immortal, to that fair Gundhurva king
A mortal blossom of delight. That bloom
Young Ruru found and plucked, but her too soon
Thy
fatal hooded snake on earth surprised,
And he through gloom now travels armed by Love."
But
then all Hades swaying towards him cried:
O mortal, O misled! But sacrifice
Is stronger, nor may law of Hell or Heaven
Its fierce effectual action supersede.
Thy dead I yield. Yet thou bethink thee, mortal,
Page-253
Not
as a tedious evil nor to be
Lightly rejected gave the gods old age,
But tranquil, but august, but making easy
The steep ascent to God. Therefore must Time
Still batter down the glory and form of youth
And animal magnificent strong ease,
To warn the earthward man that he is spirit
Dallying with transience, nor by death he ends,
Nor to the dumb warm mother’s arms is bound,
But called unborn into the unborn skies.
For body fades with the increasing soul
And wideness of its limit grown intolerant
Replaces life’s impetuous joys by peace.
Youth, manhood, ripeness, age, four seasons
Twixt its return and pale departing life
Describes, O mortal, – youth that forward bends
Midst
hopes, delights and dreamings; manhood deepens
To
passions, toils and thoughts profound; but ripeness
For
large reflective gathering-up of these,
As on a lonely slope whence men look back
Down towards the cities and the human fields
Where they too worked and laughed and loved; next age,
Wonderful
age with those approaching skies.
That boon wilt thou renounce? Wherefore? To bring
For
a few years – how miserably few! -
Her sunward who must after all return.
Ah, son of Rishis, cease. Lo, I remit
Hell’s grasp, not oft-relinquished, and send back
Thy beautiful life unborrowed to the stars.
Or thou must render to the immutable
Total all thy fruit-bearing years; then she
Reblossoms."
But the Shadow antagonist:
"Let him be shown the glory he would renounce."
And
over the flaming pediment there moved,
As on a frieze a march of sculptures, carved
By Phidias for the Virgin strong and pure,
Most perfect once of all things seen in earth
Or Heaven, in Athens on the Acropolis,
But now dismembered, now disrupt! or as
In Buddhist cavern or Orissan temple,
Page-254
Large
aspirations architectural,
Warrior and dancing-girl, adept and king,
And conquering pomps and daily peaceful groups
Dream
delicately on, softening with beauty
Great
Bhuvanayshwar, the Almighty’s house,
With sculptural suggestion so were limned
Scenes future on a pediment of fire.
There Ruru saw himself divine with age,
A Rishi to whom infinity is close,
Rejoicing in some green song-haunted glade
Or boundless mountain-top where most we feel
Widenss, not by small happy things disturbed.
Around him, as around an ancient tree
Its
seedlings, forms august or flame-like rose;
They grew beneath his hands and were his work;
Great kings were there whom time remembers, fertile
Deep minds and poets with their chanting lips
Whose words were seed of vast philosophies –
These
worshipped; above this earth’s half-day he saw
Amazed
the dawn or-that mysterious Face
And all the universe in beauty merge.
Mad the boy thrilled upwards, then spent ebbed back.
Over
his mind, as birds across the sky
Sweep and are gone, the vision of those fields
And
drooping faces came; almost he heard
The burdened river with human anguish wail.
Then with a sudden fury gathering
His soul he hurled out of it half its life,
And fell, like lightning, prone. Triumphant rose
The
shadow chill and deepened giant night.
Only the dais flickered in the gloom,
And those snake-eyes of cruel fire subdued.
But suddenly a bloom, a fragrance. Hell
Shuddered with bliss: resentful, overborne,
The
world-besetting Terror faded back
Like one grown weak by desperate victory,
And a voice cried in Ruru’s tired soul:
”Arise! the strife is over, easy now
The horror that thou hast to face, the burden
Now shared," And with a sudden burst like spring
Page-255
Life woke in the strong lover over-tired.
He rose and left dim Death. Twelve times he crossed
Boithorini, the river dolorous,
Twelve times resisted Hell and hurried down
Into the ominous pit where plunges black
The vast stream thundering, saw, led puissantly
From night to unimaginable night, -
As men oppressed in dreams, who cannot wake,
But measure penal visions, – punishments.
Whose sight pollutes, unheard-of tortures, pangs
Monstrous, intolerable mute agonies,
Twisted unmoving attitudes of pain,
Like thoughts inhuman in statuary. A fierce
And iron voicelessness had grasped those worlds.
No horror of cries expressed their endless pain,
No saving struggle, no breathings of the soul.
And in the last hell irremediable
Where Ganges clots into that fatal pool,
Appalled he saw her; pallid, listless, bare -
O other than that earthly warmth and grace
In which the happy roses deepened and dimmed
With come-and-go of swift enamoured blood!
Dumb drooped she; round her shapes of anger armed ".
Stood dark like thunder-clouds. But Ruru sprang
Upon them, burning with the admitted God.
They from his touch like ineffectual fears
Vanished; then sole with her, trembling he cried
The old glad name and crying bent to her
And touched, and at the touch the silent knots
Of Hell were broken and its sombre dream
Of dreadful stately pains at once dispersed.
Then as from one whom a surpassing joy
Has conquered, all the bright surrounding world
Streams swiftly into distance, and he feels
His daily senses slipping from his grasp,
So that unbearable enormous world
Went rolling mighty shades, like the wet mist
From men on mountain-tops; and sleep outstretched
Rising its soft arms towards him and his thoughts,
As on a bed, sank to ascending void.
Page-256
But when he woke, he heard the koil insist
On sweetness and the voice of happy things
Content with sunlight. The warm sense was round him
Of old essential earth, known hues and custom
Familiar tranquillising body and mind,
As in its natural wave a lotus feels.
He looked and saw all grass and dense green trees,
And sunshine and a single grasshopper
Near him rpeated fierily its note.
Thrilling he felt beneath his bosom her;
Oh, warm and breathing were those rescued limbs
Against the greenness, vivid, palpable, white,
With great black hair and real and her cheek’s
Old softness and her mouth a dewy rose.
For many moments comforting his soul
With all her jasmine body sun-ensnared
He fed his longing eyes and, half in doubt,
With touches satisfied himself of her.
Hesitating he kissed her eyelids. Sighing
With a slight sob she woke and earthly large
Her eyes looked upward into his. She stretched
Her arms up, yearning, and their souls embraced;
Then twixt brief sobbing laughter and blissful tears,
Clinging with all her limbs to him, "O love,
The green green world! the warm sunlight!" and ceased,
Finding
no words; but the earth breathed round them,
Glad
of her children, and the koil’s voice
Persisted
in the morning of the world.
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