Selected Poems of Horo Thacoor

1

(The soul beset by God wishes to surrender itself.)

Who is this with smeared limbs

Of sandal wreathed with forest blossom?

For a beauty in him gleams

Earth bears not on her mortal bosom.

He his hair with bloom has crowned,

And many bees come murmuring, swarming.

Who is he that with sweet sound

Arrests our feet, our hearts alarming?

Daily came I to the river,

Daily passed these boughs of blessing,

But beneath their shadow never

Saw such beauty heart-caressing.

Like a cloud yet moist with rain

His hue is, robe of masquerader.

Ah, a girl's soul out to win

Outposts here what amorous raider?

Ankle over ankle lays

And moonbeams from his feet make glamour;

When he moves, at every pace

His body's sweets Love's self enamour. 

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A strange wish usurps my mind;

My youth, my beauty, ah, life even

At his feet if I resigned

Were not that rich surrender heaven?

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2

(The soul catching a reflection of God's face in the river of the world, is enchanted with its beauty.)

Lolita, say

What is this strange, sweet thing I watch today,

Fixed lightning in the water's quiet dreaming?

Lolita, none

Disturb a single wave here, even one!

Great is her sin who blots the vision gleaming.

Lolita, see

What glimmers in the wave so wondrously?

Of Crishna's limbs it has each passionate motion.

Lolita, then

To lure my soul comes that dark rose of men

In a shadow's form, and witch with strange emotion?

Lolita, daily

To bring sweet water home we troop here gaily,

But never yet saw in the waves such beauty.

Lolita, tell me

Why do so many strange sweet thoughts assail me,

As moon-bloom petals to the moon pay duty?

Lolita, may

This be the moon eclipsed that fain would stay 

In the clear water being from heaven effaced?

Lolita, no

The moon is to the lotus bright a foe;

But this! my heart leaps forward to embrace it.

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3

(The same)

Look, Lolita, the stream one loves so

And water brings each day!

But what is this strange light that moves so,

In Jamouna today?

What is it shining, heaving, glimmering,

Is it a flower or face

Thus shimmering with the water's shimmering

And swaying as it sways?

Is it a lotus darkly blooming

In Jamouna's clear stream?

What else the depths opaque illuming

Could with such beauty claim?

Is it his shadow whom dark-burning

In sudden bloom we see

When with our brimming jars returning

We pass the tamal-tree?

Is there in upper heavens or under

A moon that's dark of hue?

By daylight does that moon of wonder

Its mystic dawn renew?

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4

(The soul recognizes the Eternal for whom it has failed in its earthly conventional duties and incurred the censure of the world.)

I know him by the eyes all hearts that ravish,

For who is there beside him?

O honey grace of amorous sweetness lavish!

I know him by his dark compelling beauty;

Once only having spied him

For him I stained my honour, scorned my duty.

I know him by his feet of moonbeam brightness;

Because for their sake purely

I live and move, my name is taxed with lightness.

Ah now I know him surely.

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5

(The soul finds that the Eternal is attracted to other than itself and grows jealous.)

O fondly hast thou loved, thyself deceiving,

But he thou lovest truth nor kindness keeps;

His tryst thou servest, disappointed, grieving, —

He on another's lovelier bosom sleeps.

With Chundra's sweets he honeys out the hours.

If thou believe not, come and thou wilt find him

In night's pale close upon a bed of flowers,

Thy Shyama with those alien arms to bind him.

For I have seen her languid swooning charms

And I have seen his burning lovely youth,

Bound breast to breast with close entwining arms

And mouth upon inseparable mouth.

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6

(The Eternal departing from the soul to his kingdom of action and its duties, the latter bemoans its loneliness.)

What are these wheels whose sudden thunder

Alarms the ear with ominous noise?

Who brought this chariot to tread under

Gocool, our Paradise?

Watching the wheels our hearts are rent asunder.

Alas! and why is Crishna standing

With Ocroor in the moving car?

To Mothura is he then wending,

To Mothura afar,

The anguish in our eyes not understanding?

What fault, what fault in Radha finding

Hast thou forsaken her who loved thee,

Her tears upon thy feet not minding?

Once surely they had moved thee!

O Radha's lord, what fault in Radha finding?

But Shyama, dost thou recollect not,

That we have left all for thy sake?

Of other thought, of other love we recked not,

Labouring thy love to wake.

Thy love's the only thought our minds reject not.

Hast thou forgot how we came running

At midnight when the moon was full,

Called by thy flute's enamoured crooning,

Musician beautiful,

Shame and reproach for thy sake never shunning?

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To please thee was our sole endeavour,

To love thee was our sole delight;

This was our sin; for this, O lover,

Dost thou desert us quite?

Is it therefore thou forsakest us for ever?

Ah why should I forbid thee so?

To Mothura let the wheels move thee,

To Mothura if thy heart go,

For the sad souls that love thee,

That thou art happy is enough to know.

But O with laughing face half-willing,

With eyes that half a glance bestow

Once only our sad eyes beguiling

Look backward ere thou go,

On Braja's neatherdess once only smiling.

One last look all our life through burning,

One last look of our dear delight

And then to watch the great wheels turning

Until they pass from sight,

Hopeless to see those well-loved feet returning.

All riches that we had, alone

Thou wast, therefore forlorn we languish;

From empty breasts we make our moan.

Our souls with the last anguish

Smiting in careless beauty thou art gone!

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7

(The soul longs for reunion with God, without whom the sweetnesses of love and life are vain.)

All day and night in lonely anguish wasting

The heart's wish to the lips unceasing comes, —

"O that I had a bird's wings to go hasting

Where that dark wanderer roams!

I should behold the flute on loved lips resting."

Where shall I find him, joy in his sweet kisses?

How shall I hope my love's feet to embrace?

O void is home and vain affection's bliss is

Without the one loved face.

Crishna who has nor home nor kindred misses.

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