REMEMBRANCE
To-day I shall not indulge in lovers’ quarrels.
I shall not open the ledger and calculate debit and credit.
Only, once again, I shall fill my heart with remembrance of thee.[13]
Priyambadā Debī.
Tr. Miss Whitehouse.
THE VISIBLE
Dearest, I know that thy body is but transitory; that the kindled life, thy shining eyes, shall be quenched by the touch of death, I know; that this thy body, the meeting-place of all beauty, in seeing which I count my life well-lived, shall become but a heap of bones, I know. Yet I love thy body. Day by day afresh through it have I satisfied a woman’s love and desire by serving thy feet and worshipping thee. On days of good omen I have decked thee with a flower-garland; on days of woe I have wiped away with my sārī end thy tears of grief. O my lord, I know that thy soul is with the Everlasting One, yet waking suddenly some nights I have wept in loneliness, thinking how thou didst drive away my fear, clasping me to thy breast. And so I count thy body as the chief goal of my love, as very heaven.[14]
Priyambadā Debī.
Tr. Miss Whitehouse.
IN THE LIGHT
We are indeed children of Light. What an endless mart goes on in the Light! In the Light is our sleeping and waking, the play of our life and death.
Beneath one great canopy, in the ray of one great sun, slowly, very slowly, burn the unnumbered lamps of life.
In the midst of this unending Light I lose myself; amidst this intolerable radiance I wander like one blind.