১৭৫
ফুল দেখিবার যোগ্য চক্ষু যার রহে
সেই যেন কাঁটা দেখে, অন্যে নহে নহে॥  

OH SAKHI, my sorrow knows no bounds.
        August comes laden with rain clouds and my house is desolate.
        The stormy sky growls, the earth is flooded with rain, my love is far away, and my heart is torn with anguish.
        The peacocks dance, for the clouds rumble and frogs croak.
        The night brims with darkness flicked with lightning.
Vidyapati asks, 'Maiden, how are you to spend your days and nights without your lord?'
LUCKY WAS MY awakening this morning, for I saw my beloved.
        The sky was one piece of joy, and my life and youth were fulfilled.
        To-day my house becomes my house in truth, and my body my body.
        Fortune has proved a friend, and my doubts are dispelled.
        Birds, sing your best; moon, shed your fairest light!
        Let fly your darts, Love-God, in millions!
        I wait for the moment when my body will grow golden at his touch.
Vidyapati says, 'Immense is your good fortune, and blessed is your love.'
I FEEL MY body vanishing into the dust whereon my beloved walks.
        I feel one with the water of the lake where he bathes.
        Oh Sakhi, my love crosses death's boundary when I meet him.
        My heart melts in the light and merges in the mirror whereby he views his face.
        I move with the air to kiss him when he waves his fan, and wherever he wanders I enclose him like the sky.
Govindadas says, 'You are the gold-setting, fair maiden, he is the emerald.'
MY LOVE, I will keep you hidden in my eyes; I will thread your image like a gem on my joy and hang it on my bosom.
        You have been in my heart ever since I was a child, throughout my youth, throughout my life, even through all my dreams.
        You dwell in my being when I sleep and when I wake.
        Know that I am a woman, and bear with me when you find me wanting.
        For I have thought and thought and know for certain that all that is left for me in this world is your love, and if I lose you for a moment I die.
Chandidas says, 'Be tender to her who is yours in life and death.'
'FRUIT TO sell. Fruit to sell,' cried the woman at the door.
The Child came out of the house.
'Give me some fruit,' said he, putting a handful of rice in her basket.
The fruit-seller gazed at his face and her eyes swam with tears.
'Who is the fortunate mother,' she cried, 'that has clasped you in her arms and fed you at her breast, and whom your dear voice called "Mother"?'
'Offer your fruit to him,' says the poet, 'and with it your life.'

THERE SMILES the Divine Child
among his playthings of unmeaning clouds
and ephemeral lights and shadows.