Canto 4Canto IV - Urvasie

Book 2. Part Two - Baroda Circa 1898 – 1902

CANTO IV

Through darkness and immense dim night he went

Mid phantom outlines of approaching trees,

And all the day in green leaves, till he came

5To peopled forests and sweet clamorous streams

And marvellous shining meadows where he lived

With Urvasie his love in seasons old.

These like domestic faces waiting were.

He knew each wind-blown tree, each different field;

10And could distinguish all the sounding rivers

Each by its own voice and peculiar flow.

Here were the happy shades where they had lain

Inarmed and murmuring, here half-lustrous groves

Still voiceful with a sacred sound at noon,

15And these the rivers from her beauty bright.

There straying in field and forest he to each

Familiar spot so full of her would speak,

Pausing by banks and memorable trees.

“O sacred fig-tree, under thee she paused

20Musing amid her tresses, and her eyes

Were sweet and grave. And, O delicious shade,

Thou hast experienced brightness from her feet,

O cool and dark green shelterer, perfect place!

And lo! the boughs all ruinous towards earth

25With blossoms. Here she lay, her arms thrown back,

Smiling up to me, and the flowers rained

Upon her lips and eyes and bosom bare.

And here a secret opening where she stood

Waiting in narrow twilight; round her all

30Was green and secret with a mystic, dewy

Half invitation into emerald worlds.

O river, from thee she moved towards the glade

Breathing and wet and fresh as if a flower

All bare from rain. And thou, great holy glade,

35Sawest her face maternal o’er her child.”

Then ceasing he would wait and listen, half

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

Expecting her. But all was silent; only

Perhaps a bird darted bright-winged away,

40Or a grey snake slipped through the brilliant leaves.

Thus wandering, thus in every mindful place

Renewing old forgotten scenes that rose,

Gleam after gleam, upon his mind, as stars

Return at night; thus drawing from his heart

45Where they lay covered, old sweet incidents

To live before his eyes; thus calling back

Uncertain moods, brief moments of her face,

And transient postures strangely beautiful,

Pleasures, and little happy mists of tears

50Heart-freeing, he, materializing dreams,

Upon her very body almost seized.

Always a sense of imperfection slipped

Between him and that passionate success.

Therefore he murmured at last unsatisfied:

55“She is not here; though every mystic glade

And sunbright pasture breathe alone of her

And quiver as with her presence, I find not

Her very limbs, her very face; yet dreamed

That here infallibly I should restrain

60Her fugitive feet or hold her by the robe.

O once she was the luminous soul of these,

And in her body lived the summer and spring

And seed and blossoming, ripening and fall,

Hiding of Beauty in the wood and glen,

65And flashing out into the sunlit fields

All flowers and laughter. All the happy moods

And all the beautiful amorous ways of earth

She was; but they now seem only her dress

Left by her. Therefore, O ye seaward rivers,

70O forests, since ye have deceived my hope,

I go from you to dazzling cruel ravines

And find her on inclement mountains pure.”

Then northward blown upon a storm of hope

Urvasie

75The hero self-discrowned, Pururavus,

Went swiftly up the burning plains and through

The portals of the old Saivaalic hills

To the inferior heights, nor lingered long,

Though pulsing with fierce memories, though thrilled

80With shocks of a great passion touching earth;

But plunged o’er difficult gorge and prone ravine

And rivers thundering between dim walls,

Driven by immense desire, until he came

To dreadful silence of the peaks and trod

85Regions as vast and lonely as his love.

Then with a confident sublime appeal

He to the listening summits stretched his hands:

“O desolate strong Himalaya, great

Thy peaks alone with heaven and dreadful hush

90In which the Soul of all the world is felt

Meditating creation! Thou, O mountain,

My bridal chamber wast. On thee we lay

With summits towards the moon or with near stars

Watching us in some wild inhuman vale,

95Thy silence over us like a coverlid

Or a far avalanche for bridal song.

Lo, she is fled into your silences!

I come to you, O mountains, with a heart

Desolate like you, like you snow-swept, and stretch

100Towards your solemn summits kindred hands.

Give back to me, O mountains, give her back.”

He ceased and Himalaya bent towards him, white.

The mountains seemed to recognize a soul

Immense as they, reaching as they to heaven

105And capable of infinite solitude.

Long he, in meditation deep immersed,

Strove to dissolve his soul among the hills

Into the thought of Urvasie. The snow

Stole down from heaven and touched his cheek and hair,

110The storm-blast from the peaks leaped down and smote

But woke him not, and the white drops in vain

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

Froze in his locks or crusted all his garb.

For he lived only with his passionate heart.

115But as the months with slow unnoticed tread

Passed o’er the hills nor brought sweet change of spring

Nor autumn wet with dew, a voice at last

Moved from far heavens, other than our sky.

And he arose as one impelled and came

120Past the supreme great ridges northward, came

Into the wonderful land far up the world

Dim-looming, where the Northern Kurus dwell,

The ancients of the world, invisible,

Among forgotten mists. Through mists he moved

125Feeling a sense of unseen cities, hearing

No sound, nor seeing face, but conscious ever

Of an immense traditionary life

Throbbing round him and dreams historical.

For as he went, old kingly memories surged,

130And with vast forward faces driving came

Origins and stabilities and empires,

Huge passionate creations, impulses

National realizing themselves in stone.

Lastly with rolling of the mists afar

135He saw beneath him the primeval rocks

Plunge down into the valley, and upsoar

To light wide thoughtful domes and measureless

Ramparts, and mid them in a glory walk

The ancients of the world with eyes august.

140Next towards the sun he looked and saw enthroned

Upon the summit one whose regal hair

Crowned her, and purple in waves down to her feet

Flowed, Indira, the goddess, Ocean’s child,

Giver of empire who all beauty keeps

145Between her hands, all glory, all wealth, all power.

Severe and beautiful she leaned her face.

“What passion, Ilian Pururavus,

Has led thee here to my great capital

And ancient men in the forgotten mists,

150Urvasie

The fathers of the Aryan race? Of glory

Enamoured hast thou come, or for thy people

Empire soliciting? But other beauty

Is on thy brow and light no longer mine.

155Yet not for self wast thou of virgin born,

Perfect, and the aerial paths of gods

Permitted to thy steps; nor for themselves,

But to the voice of Vedic litanies,

Sacredly placed are the dread crowns of Kings

160For bright felicities and cruel toils.

And thou, O Ilian Pururavus,

For passion dost thou leave thy strenuous grandeurs,

A nation’s destinies, and hast not feared

The sad inferior Ganges lapsing down

165With mournful rumour through the shades of Hell?”

Then with calm eyes the hero Ilian:

“O Goddess, patroness of Aryasthan,

Lover of banyan and of lotus, I

Not from the fear of Hell or hope of Heaven

170Do good or ill. Reigning I reigned o’er self,

And with a kingly soul did kingly deeds.

Now driven by a termless wide desire

I wander over snow and countries vague.”

And like a viol Luxmie answered him:

175“Sprung of the moon, thy grandsire’s fault in thee

Yet lives; but since thy love is singly great,

Doubtless thou shalt possess thy whole desire.

Yet hast thou maimed the future and discrowned

The Aryan people; for though Ila’s sons,

180In Hustina, the city of elephants,

And Indraprustha, future towns, shall rule

Drawing my peoples to one sceptre, at last

Their power by excess of beauty falls, —

Thy sin, Pururavus — of beauty and love:

185And this the land divine to impure grasp

Yields of barbarians from the outer shores.”

She ceased and the oblivious mists rolled down.

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

But the strong hero uncrowned, Pururavus,

190Eastward, all dreaming with his great desire,

Wandered as when a man in sleep arises,

And goes into the night, and under stars

Through the black spaces moves, nor knows his feet

Nor where they guide him, but dread unseen power

195Walks by him and leads his unerring steps

To some weird forest or gaunt mountain-side;

There he awakes, a horror in his soul,

And shudders alien amid places strange.

So wandered, driven by an unknown power,

200Pururavus. Over hushed dreadful hills

And snows more breathless to the quiet banks

Of a wide lake mid rocks and bending woods

He came, and saw calm mountains over it,

And knew in his awed heart the hill of God,

205Coilas, and Mainaac with its summits gold.

Awed he in heart, yet with a quicker stride

He moved and eyes of silent joy, like one

Who coming from long travel, sees the old

Village and children’s faces at the doors.

210In a wild faery place where mountain streams

Glimmer from the dim rocks and meet the lake

Amid a wrestle of tangled trees and heaped

Moss-grown disordered stones, and all the water

Is hidden with its lotuses and sways

215Shimmering between leaves or strains through bloom,

She sat, the mother of the Aryans, white

With a sublime pallor beneath her hair.

Musing, with wide creative brows, she sat

In a slight lovely dress fastened with flowers,

220All heaped with her large tresses. Golden swans

Preened in the waters by her dipping feet.

One hand propped her fair marble cheek, the other

The mystic lotus hardly held. Seeing her

Pururavus bent to her and adored.

225And she looked up and musing towards him

Urvasie

Said low: “O son, I knew thy steps afar.

Of me thou wast; for as I suffered rapture,

Invaded by the sea of images

230Breaking upon me from all winds, and saw

lndus and Ganges with prophetic mind,

A virginal impulse gleamed from my bosom

And on the earth took beauty and form. I saw

Thee from that glory issue and rejoiced.

235But now thou comest quite discrowned. From me,

O son, thou hadst the impulse beautiful

That made thy soul all colour. For I strive

Towards the insufferable heights and flash

With haloes of that sacred light intense.

240But lo! the spring and all its flowers, and lo!

How bright the Soma juice. What golden joys,

What living passions, what immortal tears!

I lift the veil that hides the Immortal — Ah!

My lids faint. Ah! the veil was lovelier.

245My flowers wither in that height, my swan

Spreads not his wings felicitous so far.

O one day I shall turn from the great verse

And marble aspiration to sing sweetly

Of lovers and the pomps of wealth and wine

250And warm delights and warm desires and earth.

O mine own son, Pururavus, I fall

By thy vast failure from my dazzling skies.”

And Ila’s son made answer, “O white-armed,

O mother of the Aryans, of my life

255Creatress! fates colossal overrule.

But lo! I wander like a wave, nor find

Limit to the desire that wastes my soul.”

Then with a sweet immortal smile the mother

Gave to him in the hollow of her hand

260Wonderful water of the lake. He drank,

And understood infinity, and saw

Time like a snake coiling among the stars;

And earth he saw, and mortal nights and days

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

265Grew to him moments, and his limbs became

Undying and his thoughts as marble endured.

Then to the hero deified the goddess,

“O strong immortal, now pursue thy joy:

Yet first rise up the peaks of Coilas; there

270The Mighty Mother sits, whose sovran voice

Shall ratify to thee thy future fair,”

Said and caressed his brow with lips divine.

And bright Pururavus rose up the hill

Towards the breathless summit. Thence, enshrined

275In deep concealing glories, came a voice,

And clearer he discerned as one whose eyes,

Long cognizant of darkness, coming forth,

Grow gradually habituated to light,

The calm compassionate face, the heaven-wide brow,

280And the robust great limbs that bear the world.

Prophetical and deep her voice came down:

“Thou then hast failed, bright soul; but God blames not

Nor punishes. Impartially he deals

To every strenuous spirit its chosen reward.

285And since no work, however maimed, no smallest

Energy added to the mighty sum

Of action fails of its exact result,

Empire shall in thy line and forceful brain

Persist, the boundless impulse towards rule

290Of grandiose souls perpetually recur,

And minds immense and personalities

With battle and with passion and with storm

Shall burn through Aryan history, the speech

Of ages. In thy line the Spirit Supreme

295Shall bound existence with one human form;

In Mathura and ocean Dwarca Man

Earthly perfectibility of soul

Example: son of thy line and eulogist,

The vast clear poet of the golden verse,

300Whose song shall be as wide as is the world.

But all by huge self-will or violence marred

Urvasie

Of passionate uncontrol; if pure, their work

By touch of later turbulent hands unsphered

305Or fames by legend stained. Upon my heights

Breathing God’s air, strong as the sky and pure,

Dwell only Ixvaacou’s children; destined theirs

Heaven’s perfect praise, earth’s sole unequalled song.

But thou, O Ila’s son, take up thy joy.

310For thee in sweet Gundhurva world eternal

Rapture and clasp unloosed of Urvasie,

Till the long night when God asleep shall fall.”

Ceased the great voice and strong Pururavus

Glad of his high reward, however dearly

315Purchased, purchased with infinite downfall,

With footing now divine went up the world.

Mid regions sweet and peaks of milk-white snow

And lovely corners and delicious lakes,

He saw a road all sunlight and the gates

320Of the Gundhurvas’ home. O never ship

From Ocean into Ocean erring knew

Such joy through all its patient sails at sight

Of final haven near as the tried heart

Of earth’s successful son at that fair goal.

325Towards the gates he hastened, and one bright

With angel face who at those portals stood

Cried down, “We wait for thee, Pururavus.”

Then to his hearing musical, the hinges

Called; he beheld the subtle faces look

330Down on him and the crowd of luminous forms,

And entered to immortal sound of lyres.

Up through the streets a silver cry went on

Before him of high instruments. From all

The winds the marvellous musicians pressed

335To welcome that immortal lover. One

Whose pure-limned brows aerial wore by right

Faery authority, stood from the crowd.

“O Ila’s son, far-famed Pururavus,

Baroda, c. 1898–1902

340Destined to joys by mortals all unhoped!

Move to thy sacred glories as a star

Into its destined place, shine over us

Here greatest as upon thy greener earth.”

They through the thrilling regions musical

345Led him and marvelled at him and praised with song

His fair sublimity of form and brow

And warlike limbs and grace heroical.

He heeded not, for all his soul was straining

With expectation of a near delight.

350His eyes that sought her ever, beheld a wall

Of mighty trees and, where they arched to part,

Those two of all their sisters brightest rise,

One blithe as is a happy brook, the other

With her grave smile; and each took a strong hand

355In her soft clasp, and led him to a place

Distinct mid faery-leaved ethereal trees

And magic banks and sweet low curves of hills,

And over all the sunlight like a charm.

There by a sounding river downward thrown

360From under low green-curtaining boughs was she.

Mute she arose and with wide quiet eyes

Came towards him. In their immortal looks

Was a deep feeling too august for joy,

The sense that all eternity must follow

365One perfect moment. Then that comrade bright

With slow grave smile, “O after absence wide

Who meet and shall not sunder any more

Till slumber of the Supreme, strong be your souls

To bear unchanging rapture; strong you were

370By patience to compel unwilling Gods.”

And they were left alone in that clear world.

Then all his soul towards her leaning, took

Pururavus into his clasp and felt,

Seriously glad, the golden bosom on his

375Of Urvasie, his love; so pressing back

The longed-for sacred face, lingering he kissed.

Urvasie

Then Love in his sweet heavens was satisfied.

But far below through silent mighty space

380The green and strenuous earth abandoned rolled.