In the second half of the poem the Yaksha first describes the beauties of this city and his own dwelling there. Going on to paint in glowing colours the charms of his wife, her surroundings, and her occupations, he imagines her tossing on her couch, sleepless and emaciated, through the watches of the night. Then, when her eye rests on the window, the cloud shall proclaim to her with thunder-sound her husband’s message, that he is still alive and ever longs to behold her:—
In creepers I discern thy form, in eyes of startled hinds thy glances,
And in the moon thy lovely face, in peacocks’ plumes thy shining tresses;
The sportive frown upon thy brow in flowing waters’ tiny ripples:
But never in one place combined can I, alas! behold thy likeness.
But courage, he says; our sorrow will end at last—we shall be re-united—
And then we will our hearts’ desire, grown more intense by separation,
Enjoy in nights all glorious and bright, with full-orbed autumn moonlight.
Then begging the cloud, after delivering his message, to return with reassuring news, the exile finally dismisses him with the hope that he may never, even for a moment, be divided from his lightning spouse.
Besides the expression of emotion, the descriptive element is very prominent in this fine poem. This is still more true of Kālidāsa’s Ṛitusaṃhāra, or “Cycle of the Seasons.” That little work, which consists of 153 stanzas in six cantos, and is composed in various metres, is a highly poetical description of the six seasons into which classical Sanskrit poets usually divide the Indian year. With glowing descriptions of the beauties of Nature, in which erotic scenes are interspersed, the poet adroitly interweaves the expression of human emotions. Perhaps no other work of Kālidāsa’s manifests so strikingly the poet’s deep sympathy with Nature, his keen powers of observation, and his skill in depicting an Indian landscape in vivid colours.