III Girls with the startled eyes of forest deer, And fluttering hands that drip With sandal-water; bathing-halls with clear Deep pools to float and dip; The light moon blown across the shadowy hours, Cool winds, and odorous flowers, And the high terraced roof, — all things enhance In Summer love's sweet trance.
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V This Winter gale will play the gallant lover, And meeting careless girls Will pluck their gowns, and with rude fingers hover Among their tangled curls. He'll kiss their eyelids too, their cheeks caress Till they are all a-tremble; He'll tease their lips till murmurs soft confess The love they would dissemble.
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VI ’T is earth's Renewal : now the fluttering breeze, Blown from the snowy hills And filtered through the blooming mango trees, The world with sweetness fills. Now the mad bees are stung with brisk alarm; And the wild cuckoos charm The woods with singing, _Well! ah well! 't is well! We yield to Kāma's spell!_
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IX A flower whose fragrance none hath savored, A singing bird no ear hath favored, White pearl no jeweler hath bored, Untasted honey freshly stored In a clean jar, unbroken fruit That ripens now from virtue's root, — Wondering I ask, O form unspotted, To whose delight, sweet girl, thou art allotted ?
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X My love within a forest walked alone, All in a moonlit dale; And here awhile she rested, weary grown, And from her shoulders threw the wimpled veil To court the little gale. I peering through the thicket saw it all, The yellow moonbeams fall, I saw them mirrored from her bosom fly Back to the moon on high.
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XII Love's fruit in all the world is only this, That two as one should think; And they that disagree yet woo love's bliss, Dead corpse with corpse would link.
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XIV Brightly the hearth-fire leap, and the lit lamp Be burning clear and high ; Let sun or moon and starry hosts encamp With beacons in the sky : — Yet darkness in my heart and all is dark, Till I behold thine eyes and their love-spark.
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XV But to remember her my heart is sad, To see her is to know Bewildered thoughts, and touching driveth mad, How is she dear that worketh only woe?
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XVIII With one they laugh and chatter, yet beguile With luring eyes a second; A third they cherish in their heart the while, — Their true love who hath reckoned?
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XIX Now judge ye! — For a girl I walked forlorn Who laughed my vows to scorn; She loved another, who in coin repaid Wooing a second maid. And she, this second, making all complete, Would worship at my feet. — Four pretty fools and Kāma with his malice Thus drove me from my palace.
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XX Harder than faces in a glass designed, A woman's heart to bind ; Like mountain paths up cragged heights that twist, Her ways are lightly missed. Like early dew-drops quivering on a leaf, Her thoughts are idly brief; And errors round her grow, as on a vine The poison-tendrils twine.
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XXI The sportive Love-god in this worldly sea Angles continually; And women are his hook, their luring lips The bait that bobs and dips. We greedy fools, like silly nibbling fish, Are landed with a swish; And then, alack! to end the cruel game Are broiled on love's quick flame.
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XXII O Wanderer Heart! avoid that haunted grove, The body of thy love; Nor in her bosom stray, wild mountain fells Where Love, the robber, dwells.
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XXVII Like as the shadows of the twilight hour Differ from those at morn, So doth a good man's friendship in its power From that of evil born :— One small at first still stronger, deeper grows, One shortens to the close.
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XXIX A friend or stranger comes he? — so They reckon of the narrow mind; But some of broader reason know In all the world one kith and kind.
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XXX Lightly an ignorant boor is made content, And lightlier yet a sage; But minds by half-way knowledge warped and bent, Not Brahma's self their fury may assuage.
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XXXI Oil from the sand a man may strain, If chance he squeeze with might and main; The pilgrim at the magic well Of the mirage his desert thirst may quell. So traveling far a man by luck May find a hare horned like a buck; — But who by art may straighten out The crooked counsels of a stubborn lout?
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XXXII Better, I said, in trackless woods to roam With chattering apes or the dumb grazing herds, Than dwell with fools, though in a prince's home, And bear the dropping of their ceaseless words.
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XXXIII The god hath wove for ignorance a cloak That he who will may wear; And mantled thus amid the wisest folk Fools may unchallenged fare: — Be silent ! over all that words afford, Silence hath its reward.
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XXXVII Where patience dwells what need of other shield? Why prate of foemen when to wrath we yield? More warmth our kindred give than fires; and friends Far more than soothing herbs our wounds have healed. Why pray the gods whose heaven by love is wrought? Why slave for wealth when wisdom is unbought? What pearls can modesty adorn? what gift Of kings add splendor to the poet's thought?
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XXXIX Better from the sheer mountain-top Headlong thy ruined body drop; Better appease the serpent's ire With thy right hand; or in the fire Behold thy riven members tost, Than once thy mind's integrity were lost.
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XLIII Pleasure of life we have not known, Ourselves the sport of Fate alone; Penance of soul we never sought, But in our heart unbidden sorrows wrought. Time hath not journeyed, — nay, But we are passing day by day; And the desires that still their rage Are not grown old — ourselves are chilled with age.
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XLIV For buried treasures earth I bored, I smelted all a mountain's hoard, I crossed the outrageous boisterous seas, And for a king's content I sold my ease. By night I haunted the foul tomb With spells to waken from their doom The sleepers. — Did I e'er succeed A farthing ? — out upon thee, cursèd Greed!
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XLV O'er perilous mountain roads with pain I 've journeyed, yet acquired no gain; The pride of birth I have forsworn And toiled in service, yet no profit borne. In strange homes where I blushed to go My food I've taken, like the crow, And eaten shame. — Oh lust of gold! Oh Greed! that younger grow'st as I wax old!
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XLVI Read! — the Creator's finger on thy brow Hath wrote the figure of thy wealth; nor thou In lonely desert hid shalt make it less, Nor greater on the Golden Mount possess. What worry then? why in the crowded mart With vulgar traffic wear away thy heart? The pitcher at the well is filled, nor more Draws at the ocean-shore.
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XLVII A captive snake half dead with fright Starved in a basket; till one night A silly mouse, who roamed abroad, A hole straight through the wicker gnawed, And in his very gullet jumped. The serpent felt his thin sides plumped, Took cheer, and wriggled out in turn. — Who knows all lucky falls in Fortune's urn?
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XLVIII An old man bald as a copper pot, Because one noon his head grew hot, Crawled to a spreading bilva-tree To seek the shade. By Fate's decree A fruit just then came tumbling down, And cracked the old man's brittle crown With loud explosion — which was worse. — Ill dogs us everywhere when Fate 's averse.
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LV Before the Gods we bend in awe, But lo, they bow to fate's dread law Honor to Fate, then, austere lord! But lo, it fashions but our works' reward. Nay, if past works our present state Engender, what of gods and fate? Honor to Works! in them the power Before whose awful nod even fate must cower.
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LXIX A hundred years we barely keep, Yet half of this is lost in sleep; And half our waking time we spend In the child's folly and the old man's end. And of the hours remaining, fears And gaunt disease and parting tears Are all the prize: — fie on the slave Who life more values than a bubbling wave!
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LXX A while the helpless wailing child, A while the youth by lusts denied, A while for gold to cringe and swink, A while to hear the yellow counters clink: A while of lonely eld's disgrace, The palsied limb and wizened face, — Then like the player he too creeps Behind the heavy curtain — he too sleeps.
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LXXI Fallen our father, fallen who bore For us the pangs — they went before: And some with our years grew, but they, They too now tread on memory's dusty way. And we ourselves from morn to morn Now shiver like old trees forlorn Upon a sandy shore, and all Our care the lapping waves that haste our fall.
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LXXII Old age like as a tiger held at bay Still crouches ; sly diseases day by day   Our leaguered body sap; As water from a broken urn, so leak Our wasting minutes ; — lo, this people seek   Oblivion in love's lap.
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LXXVII Fear troubles pleasure lest it sap our health; Fear marreth beauty for the hideous stealth Of love; fear prophesies to pride her fall; Fear palsies strength, and warns the loss of wealth. Fear poisons learning for another's fame; Fear haunts the flesh with dissolution's shame; Fear is to live ; — save when the soul withdrawn Looks out and laughs at the world's care and claim.
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LXXVIII All dearest things forsake us : — wealth is sped To-day, or yet to-morrow love lies dead,   Or hope fades in a year. Poor fools ! what matter when they go or how? Poor fools ! that cling and will not leave them now,   Adding to loss a fear. For if themselves they part what pangs they leave! Nay, fling them forth, and the soul's peace receive,   Eternal now and here.
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LXXXVIII One boasted: “Lo, the earth my bed, This arm a pillow for my head, The moon my lantern, and the sky Stretched o'er me like a purple canopy. “No slave-girls have I, but all night The four winds fan my slumbers light.” — And I astonished : Like a lord This beggar sleeps; what more could wealth afford?
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LXXXIX Are there no caverns in the mountains left? Are all the forest boughs of leaves bereft And mellowing fruit? are the wild cataracts still On every lonely hill? Why haunt the servile press? or cringe and bow To win the nod of some majestic brow That wears for honor the low insolence Of wealth — how got and whence?
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XCII Is there no pleasure in these palace halls, Where love invites and music ever calls? No pleasure, when the revelers troop away, If one, the loveliest, stay? Yet have the prudent weighed the world as froth; Lo, as a candle-flame by wing of moth Is fluttered, so they count its fickle mood; They turn to solitude.
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XCVII How slow to him who haunts preferment's door The long days drag! how lightly hurry o'er, When the awakened soul hath thrown aside Its load of worldly pride! So, lying near my cavern's rocky ledge, I 'd dream at ease upon the mountain edge; And laugh a little in my heart, and then Plunge into thought again.
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C O mother earth! O father air! O light, My friend! O kindred water! and thou height Of skies, my brother! — crying unto you, Crying, I plead adieu. Well have I wrought among you, — now the day Of Wisdom dawning strikes old Error's sway, And the light breaks, and the long-waiting soul Greeteth her blissful goal.
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