Now I've come to know -
I am a woman of weakness.
My soft beauty of winds
Makes me lose to everyone.

But why does my heart
Itself grows so tender?
And why do my dusky eyes
Well up suddenly with tears?

To lose myself fully,
To trust the shades of a tall tree,
To lie down there silently,
Why do my longings grow in the web of love?

Woman, you are love incarnated
Under the silver mountain of faith.
Keep on flowing like a river of nectar
On the beautiful bed of life.

-tr. Ravi Kopra

*****

That is my window. Just now
I have so softly wakened.
I thought that I would float.
How far does my life reach,
and where does the night begin

I could think that everything
was still me all around;
transparent like a crystal's
depths, darkened, mute.

I could keep even the stars
within me; so immense
my heart seems to me; so willingly
it let him go again.

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold.
Like something strange, undreamt-of,
my fate now gazes at me.

For what, then, am I stretched out

IF thou wilt ease thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
   Then sleep, dear, sleep;
And not a sorrow
   Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
   Lie still and deep,
   Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes
The rim o' the sun to-morrow,
   In eastern sky.

But wilt thou cure thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
   Then die, dear, die;
'Tis deeper, sweeter,
   Than on a rose-bank to lie dreaming

Withowt dyscord
And bothe acorde
Now let us be;
Bothe hartes alone
To set in one
Best semyth me.
For when one sole
Ys in the dole
Of lovys payne,
Then helpe must have
Hymselfe to save
And love to optayne.
Wherfore now we
That lovers be
Let us now pray
Onys love sure
For to procure
Withowt denay.
Wher love so sewith,
Ther no hart rewith
But condyscend;
Yf contrarye,
What remedy?
God yt amen.

How trifling shall these gifts appear
Among the splendid many
That loving friends now send to cheer
Harvey and Ellen Jenney.

And yet these baubles symbolize
A certain fond relation
That well beseems, as I surmise,
This festive celebration.

Sweet friends of mine, be spoons once more,
And with your tender cooing
Renew the keen delights of yore--
The rapturous bliss of wooing.

What though that silver in your hair
Tells of the years aflying?
'T is yours to mock at Time and Care
With love that is undying.

I wish we could live as the flowers live,
To breathe and to bloom in the summer and sun;
To slumber and sway in the heart of the night,
And to die when our glory had done.
I wish we could love as the bees love,
To rest or to roam without sorrow or sigh;
With laughter, when, after the wooer had won,
Love flew with a whispered goodbye.
I wish we could die as the birds die,
To fly and to fall when our beauty was best
No trammels of time on the years of our face;
And to leave but an empty nest.

Love wine and beauty and the spring,
While wine is red and spring is here,
And through the almond blossoms ring
The dove-like voices of thy Dear.

Love wine and spring and beauty while
The wine hath flavour and spring masks
Her treachery in so soft a smile
That none may think of toil and tasks.

But when spring goes on hurrying feet,
Look not thy sorrow in the eyes,
And bless thy freedom from thy sweet:
This is the wisdom of the wise.

It smelt of new rains and of tender
Shoots of plants- and its warmth was the warmth
Of earth groping for roots… even my
Soul, I thought, must send its roots somewhere
And, I loved his body without shame,
On winter evenings as cold winds
Chuckled against the white window-panes.

[From Summer in Calcutta]

Silly little bird,
Singing of its love,
Sang and never heard
Winds of wrath above.

Winds of wrath came down,
Tossed the world about.
Bird and song were gone
When the stars came out.

'WHAREFORE sou'd ye talk o' love,
   Unless it be to pain us?
Wharefore sou'd ye talk o' love
   Whan ye say the sea maun twain us?'

'It 's no because my love is light,
   Nor for your angry deddy;
It 's a' to buy ye pearlins bright,
   An' to busk ye like a leddy.'

'O Willy, I can caird an' spin,
   Se ne'er can want for cleedin';
An' gin I hae my Willy's heart,
   I hae a' the pearls I'm heedin'.