Canto 2Canto II - Urvasie

Book 2. Part Two - Baroda Circa 1898 – 1902

CANTO II

But from the dawn and mountains Urvasie

Went marvelling and glad, not as of old

A careless beam; for an august constraint,

5Unfelt before, ruled her extravagant grace

And wayward beauty; and familiar things

Grew strange to her, and to her eyes came mists

Of mortal vision. Love was with her there,

But not of Paradise nor that great guest

10Perpetual who makes his golden couch

Between the Opsara’s ever-heaving breasts.

For this was rapturous, troubled, self-absorbed,

A gracious human presence which she loved,

And wondered at, and hid deep in her heart.

15And whether in the immortal’s dance she moved,

A billow, or her fingers like sunbeams

Brightened the harps of heaven, or going out

With the white dawn to bathe in Swerga’s streams,

Or in the woods of Eden wandering,

20Or happy sitting under peaceful boughs

In a great golden evening, all she did,

Celestial occupations, all she thought

And all she was, though still the same, had changed.

There was a happy trouble in her ways

25And movements; her felicitous lashes drooped

As with a burden; all her daily acts

Were like a statue’s imitating life,

Not single-hearted like the sovran Gods.

Now as the days of heaven went by in quiet

30And there was peaceful summer ’mid the Gods,

In Swerga song increased and dances swayed

In multitudinous beauty, jasmine-crowned;

And often in high Indra’s hall the spirits

Immortal met to watch the shows divine

35Of action and celestial theatre.

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

For not of earth alone are delicate arts

And noble imitations, but in heaven

Have their rich prototypes. So on that day

40Before a divine audience there was staged

The Choice of Luxmie. Urvasie enacted

The goddess, Ocean’s child, and M´enaca

Was Varunie, and other girls of heaven

Assembled the august desiring Gods.

45Full strangely sweet those delicate mimics were;

Moonbeam faces imitated the strength

And silence of great spirits battle-worn,

And little hands the awful muniments

Of empire grasped and powers that shake the world.

50Then with a golden wave of arm sublime

M´enaca towards the warlike consistory,

Under half-drooping lashes indicating

Where calm eternal Vishnu like a cloud

Sat discus-armed, said to her sister bright:

55“Daughter of Ocean, sister, for whom heaven

Is passionate, thou hast reviewed the powers

Eternal and their dreadful beauty scanned,

And heard their blissful names. Say, unafraid

Before these listening faces, whom thou lovest

60Above all Gods and more than earth and more

Than joy of Swerga’s streams?” And Urvasie,

Musing with wide unseeing eyes, replied

In a far voice: “The King Pururavus.”

Then, as a wind among the leaves, there swept

65A gust of laughter through the assembled Gods,

A happy summer sound. But not in mirth

Bharuth, the mighty dramatist of heaven,

Passionate to see his smooth work marred and spell

Broken of scenic fancies finely-touched:

70“Since thou hast brought the breath of mortal air

Into the pure solemnities of heaven,

And since thou givest up to other ends

Than the one need for which God made thee form,

Urvasie

75Thy being and hast here transferred from earth

Human failure from the divided soul,

Marring my great creation, Urvasie,

I curse thee to possess thy heart’s desire.

Exiled from Swerga’s streams and golden groves

80Thou, by terrestrial Ganges or on sad

Majestic mountains or in troubled towns,

Enjoy thy love, but hope not here to breathe

Felicity in regions built for peace

Of who, erect in their own nature, keep

85Living by fated toils the glorious world.”

He ceased and there was silence of the Gods.

Then Indra answered, smiling, though ill-pleased:

“Bharuth, not well nor by the fates allowed

To exile without limit from the skies

90Who of the skies is part. Her wilt thou banish

From the felicity of grove and stream,

Making our Eden empty of her smiles?

But what felicity in stream or grove

And she not secret there? And hast thou taxed

95Her passion, yet in passion wouldst deface

The beautiful world because thy work is vain?”

Bharuth replied, the high poet severe:

“Irrevocable is the doom pronounced

Once by my lips. Fates too are born of song.

100But if of limit thou speakest and the term

By nature fixed to the divorce of her

From the felicity in which she moves,

Nature that fixed the limit, still effects

Inevitably its fated ends. For Fate,

105The dim great presence, is but nature made

Irrevocable in its fruits. Let her

To the pure banks of sacred Ganges wend.

There she may keep her exile, from of old

Intended for perfection of the earth

110Through her sweet change. Heaven too shall flash and grow

Fairer with her returning feet though changed, —

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

Though changed, yet lovelier from beneficence.

For she will come soft with maternal cheeks

115And flushed from nuptial arms and human-blest

With touches of the warm delightful earth.”

He said and Urvasie from the dumb place

And thoughtful presence of the Gods departed

Into the breezy noon of Swerga. Under

120Green well-known boughs laden with nameless fruit

And over blissful swards and perfect flowers

And through the wandering alleys she arrived

To heavenly Ganges where it streams o’er stones;

There from the banks of summer downward stepped,

125One little golden hand gathering her dress

Above her naked knees, and, lovely, passed

Through the divine pellucid river on

To Swerga’s portals, pausing on the slope

Which goes toward the world. There she looked down

130With yearning eyes far into endless space.

Behind her stood the green felicitous peaks

And trembling tops of woods and pulse of blue

With those calm cloudless summits quivering.

All heaven was behind her, but she sent

135No look to those eternal seats of joy.

She down the sunbeams gazed where mountains rose

In snow, the bleak and mighty hills of earth,

And virgin forests vast, great infant streams

And cities young in the heroic dawn

140Of history and insurgent human art

Titanic on the old stupendous hills.

Towards these she gazed down under eyelids glad.

And to her gazing came Tilˆottama,

Bright out of heaven, and clasped her quiet hand

145And murmured softly, “Sister, let us go.”

Then they went down into the waiting world,

The golden women, and through gorges mute

Past Budricayshwur in the silent snow

Came silent to Pururavus Urvasie.

150Urvasie

For not in Ilian streets Pururavus

Sojourned, nor in the happy throng of men,

But with the infinite and the lonely hills.

For he grew weary of walls and luminous carved

155Imperial pillars bearing up huge weight

Of architectural stone, and the long street,

And thoughtful temple wide, and sharp cymbals

Protecting the august pure place with sound;

The battled tramp of men, sessions of kings,

160The lightning from sharp weapons, jubilant crash

Of chariots, and the Veda’s mighty chant;

The bright booths of the merchants, the loud looms

And the smith’s hammer clanging music out,

And stalwart men driving the patient plow

165Indomitable in fierce breath of noon.

Of these he now grew weary and the blaze

Of kingship, its immense and iron toils,

With one hand shielding in the people’s ease,

With one hand smiting back the tireless foe,

170And difficulty of equal justice cold,

And kind beneficent works harmonious kept

With terrible control; the father’s face,

The man’s heart, the steeled intellect of power

Insolubly one; and after sleepless nights

175Labouring greatly for a great reward,

Frequent failure and vigorous success,

And sweet reward of voices filial grown.

These that were once his life, he loved no more.

They held not his desire nor were alive,

180But pale magnificent ghosts out of the past

With sad obsession closing him from warm

Life and the future in far sunlight gold.

For in his heart and in his musing eyes

There was a light on the cold snows, a blush

185Upon the virgin quiet of the East

And storm and slowly-lifting lids. Therefore

He left the city Ilian and plains

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

Whence with a mighty motion eastward flows

190Ganges, heroical and young, a swift

Mother of strenuous nations, nor yet reaches

Her musing age in ardent deep Bengal.

He journeyed to the cold north and the hills

Austere, past Budricayshwur ever north,

195Till, in the sixth month of his pilgrimage

Uneasy, to a silent place he came

Within a heaped enormous region piled

With prone far-drifting hills, huge peaks o’erwhelmed

Under the vast illimitable snows, —

200Snow on ravine, and snow on cliff, and snow

Sweeping in strenuous outlines to heaven,

With distant gleaming vales and turbulent rocks,

Giant precipices black-hewn and bold

Daring the universal whiteness; last,

205A mystic gorge into some secret world.

He in that region waste and wonderful

Sojourned, and morning-star and evening-star

Shone over him and faded, and immense

Darkness wrapped the hushed mountain solitudes

210And moonlight’s brilliant muse and the cold stars

And day upon the summits brightening.

But ere day grew the hero nympholept

Climbed the immortal summits towards the dawn

And came with falling evening down and lay

215Watching the marvellous sky, but called not sleep

That beat her gentle wings over his eyes,

Nor food he needed who was grown a god.

And in the seventh month of his waiting long

Summit or cliff he climbed no more, but added

220To the surrounding hush sat motionless,

Gazing towards the dim unfathomed gorge.

Six days he sat and on the seventh they came

Through the dumb gorge, a breath of heaven, a stir,

Then Eden’s girls stepping with moonbeam feet

225Urvasie

Over the barren rocks and dazzling snows,

That grew less dazzling, their tresses half unbound

And delicate raiment girdled enchantingly.

Silent the perfect presences of heaven

230Came towards him and stood a little away,

Like flowers waiting for a sunbeam. He

Stirred not, but without voice, in vision merged,

Sat, as one sleeping momently expects

The end of a dear dream he sees, and knows

235It is a dream, and quietly resigned

Waits for the fragile bliss to break or fade.

Then nearer drew divine Tilˆottama

And stood before his silence statuesque,

Holding her sister’s hand; for she hung back,

240Not as an earthly maiden, cheeks suffused,

Lids drooping, but as men from patience called

Before supreme felicity hang back,

A little awed, a little doubtful, fearing

To enter radiant Paradise, so bright

245It seems; thus she and quailed before her bliss.

But her sister, extending one bright arm:

“Pururavus, thou hast conquered and I bring

No dream into thy life, but Urvasie.”

And at that name the strong Pururavus

250Rose swaying to his feet like one struck blind;

Or when a great thought flashes through his brain,

A poet starts up and almost cries aloud

As at a voice, — so he arose and heard.

And slowly said divine Tilˆottama:

255“Yet, son of Ila, one is man and other

The Opsaras of heaven, daughters of the sea,

Unlimited in being, Ocean-like.

They not to one lord yield nor in one face

Limit the universe, but like sweet air,

260Water unowned and beautiful common light

In unrestrained surrender remain pure.

In patient paths of Nature upon earth

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

And over all the toiling stars we fill

265With sacred passion large high-venturing spirits

And visit them with bliss; so are they moved

To immense creative anguish, glad if through

Heart-breaking toil once in bare seasons dawn

Our golden breasts between their hands or rush

270Our passionate presence on them like a wave.

In heaven bright-limbed with bodily embrace

We clasp the Gods, and clasp the souls of men,

And know with winds and flowers liberty.

But what hast thou with us or winds or flowers?

275O thou who wast so white, wilt thou not keep

Thy pure and lonely eminence and move

For ever towards morning like a star?

Or as thy earthly Ganges rolling down

Between the homes and passionate deeds of men,

280And bearing many boats and white with oars,

From all that life quite separate, only lives

Towards Ocean, so thou doest human work,

Making a mighty nation, doing high

And necessary deeds, but, all untouched

285By action, livest in thy soul apart

And to the immortal zenith climbest pure.”

But he, blind as from dazzling dreams, said low:

“One I thought spoke far-off of purity

And whiteness and the human soul in God.

290These things were with me once, but now I see

The Spring a golden child and shaken fields.

All beautiful things draw near and come to me.

I dream upon a woman’s glorious breasts,

And watch the dew-drop and am glad with birds,

295And love the perfect coilings of the snake,

And cry with fire in the burning trees,

And am a wave towards desired shores.

I move to these and move towards her bosom

And mystic eyes where all these are one dream.

300And what shall God profit me or his glory,

Urvasie

Who love one small face more than all his worlds?”

He woke with his own voice. His words that first

Dreamed like a languid wave, sudden were foam;

305And he beheld her standing and his look

Grew strong; he yearned towards her like a wave,

And she received him in her eyes as earth

Receives the rain. Then bright Tilˆottama

Cried in a shining glory over them:

310“O happy lover and O fortunate loved,

Who make love heavenlier by loss! Ah yet,

The Gods give no irrecoverable gifts,

Nor unconditioned, O Pururavus,

Is highest bliss even to most favoured men.

315And thy deep joy must tremble o’er her with soul

On guard, all overshadowed by a fear.

For one year thou shalt know her on the peaks,

In solitary vastnesses of hills

And regions snow-besieged; and for one year

320In the green forests populous and free

Life in sunlight and by delightful streams

Thou shalt enjoy her; and for one year where

The busy tramp of men goes ceaseless by,

Subduing her to lovely human cares:

325And so long after as one law observed

Save her to thee, O King; for never man

With Opsara may dwell and both be known:

Either a rapture she invisible

Or he a mystic body and mystic soul.

330Reveal not then thy being naked to hers,

O virgin Ila’s son, nor suffer ever

Light round thy body naked to her eyes,

Lest day dawn not on thy felicity,

Sole among men.” She left them, shining up

335Into the sunlight, and was lost in noon.

And King Pururavus stood for a space,

Like the entranc`ed calm before great winds

And thunder. Then through all his limbs there flashed

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

340Youth and the beauty and the warmth of earth

And joy of her left lonely to his will.

He moved, he came towards her. She, a leaf

Before a gust among the nearing trees,

Cowered. But, all a sea of mighty joy

345Rushing and swallowing up the golden sand,

With a great cry and glad Pururavus

Seized her and caught her to his bosom thrilled,

Clinging and shuddering. All her wonderful hair

Loosened and the wind seized and bore it streaming

350Over the shoulder of Pururavus

And on his cheek a softness. She, o’erborne,

Panting, with inarticulate murmurs lay,

Like a slim tree half seen through driving hail,

Her naked arms clasping his neck, her cheek

355And golden throat averted, and wide trouble

In her large eyes bewildered with their bliss.

Amid her wind-blown hair their faces met.

With her sweet limbs all his, feeling her breasts

Tumultuous up against his beating heart,

360He kissed the glorious mouth of heaven’s desire.

So clung they as two shipwrecked in a surge.

Then strong Pururavus, with godlike eyes

Mastering hers, cried tremulous: “O beloved,

O miser of thy rich and happy voice,

365One word, one word to tell me that thou lovest.”

And Urvasie, all broken on his bosom,

Her godhead in his passion lost, moaned out

From her imprisoned breasts, “My lord, my love!”