Out of each face,
In the close embrace,
That by-and-by embracing will be over;
The ache that causes
Those mournful pauses
In bowers of earth between lover and lover:
To be no more felt,
To fade, to melt
In the strong certainty of joys immortal;
In the glad meeting,
And quick sweet greeting
Of lips that close beyond Time's shadowy portal.
And to thee is given,
Angel of Heaven!
This glory and this joy with Krishna. Go!
Let him attain,
For his long pain,
The prize it promised,—see thee coming slow,
A vision first, but then—
By glade and glen—
A lovely, loving soul, true to its home;
His Queen—his Crown—his All,
Hast'ning at last to fall
Upon his breast, and live there. Radha, come!
Come! and come thou, Lord of all,
Unto whom the Three Worlds call;
Thou, that didst in angry might,
Kansa, like a comet, smite;
Thou, that in thy passion tender,
As incarnate spell and splendour,
Hung on Radha's glorious face—
In the garb of Krishna's grace—
As above the bloom the bee,
When the honeyed revelry
Is too subtle-sweet an one
Not to hang and dally on;
Thou that art the Three Worlds' glory,
Of life the light, of every story
The meaning and the mark, of love
The root and, flower, o' the sky above
The blue, of bliss the heart, of those,
The lovers, that which did impose
The gentle law, that each should be
The other's Heav'n and harmony.
(Here ends that Sarga of the Gîta Govinda entitled
Sakandksilapundarikaksho.)