romantic poems

Narrinai 63

On the new sand
where fishermen,
their big nets
ripped apart by an angry sea,
dry their great hauls of fish

in a humming neighborhood
of meat smells,

a laurel tree blossoms
all at once in bright clusters
fragrant as a festival,

but this unfair town
is noisy with gossip.

And what with an unfair Mother too
keeping strict watch over us,

will our love just perish here

Ainkurunuru 192, 193, 197

My love whose bangles
glitter, jingle,
as she chases crabs,

suddenly stands shy,
head lowered,
hair hiding her face:

but only till the misery of evening
passes, when she'll give me
the full pleasure

of her breasts.

Kuruntokai 38

He is from those mountains

where the little black-faced monkey,
playing in the sun,
rolls the wild peacock's eggs
on the rocks.

Yes, his love is always good
as you say, my friend,

but only for those strong enough
to bear it,

who will not cry their eyes out
or think anything of it

when he leaves.

Kuruntokai 204

Love, love,
they say.
Love
is no disease,
no evil goddess.

Come to think of it,
dear man
with those great shoulders,
love is very much like an old bull,

enjoys a good lick
of the young grass
on the slope
of an old backyard:

a fantasy feast,
that's what love is.

Kuruntokai 119

As a little white snake
with lovely stripes on its young body
troubles the jungle elephant

this slip of a girl
her teeth like sprouts of new rice
her wrists stacked with bangles

troubles me.

I

My Lucy, when the maid is won
The minstrel's task, thou know'st, is done;
And to require of bard
That to his dregs the tale should run
Were ordinance too hard.
Our lovers, briefly be it said,
Wedded as lovers wont to wed,
When tale or play is o'er;
Lived long and blest, loved fond and true,
And saw a numerous race renew
The honors that they bore.

CLII

Love, to give law unto his subject hearts,
Stood in the eyes of Barsabe the bright,
And in a look anon himself converts
Cruelly pleasant before King David sight;
First dazed his eyes, and further forth he starts
With venomed breath, as softly as he might
Touched his senses, and overruns his bones
With creeping fire sparpled for the nonce.

And when he saw that kindled was the flame,
The moist poison in his heart he lanced
So that the soul did tremble with the same.

" But that thou mayst not think that I wage implacable warfare against Fortune, I own there is a time when the deceitful goddess serves men well — I mean when she reveals herself, uncovers her face, and confesses her true character. Perhaps thou dost not yet grasp my meaning. Strange is the thing I am trying to express, and for this cause I can scarce find words to make clear my thought. For truly I believe that Ill Fortune is of more use to men than Good Fortune.

ECLOG. VII.

The PRIZE.

1

Aurora from old Tithons frosty bed
(Cold, wintry, wither'd Tithon ) early creeps;
Her cheek with grief was pale, with anger red;
Out of her window close she blushing peeps;
Her weeping eyes in pearled dew she steeps,
Casting what sportlesse nights she ever led:
She dying lives, to think he's living dead.
Curst be, and cursed is that wretched sire,
That yokes green youth with age, want with desire.
Who ties the sunne to snow? or marries frost to fire?

2

Eclog. VI

A fisher-boy that never knew his peer
In daintie songs, the gentle Thomalin ,
With folded arms, deep sighs, & heavy cheer
Where hundred Nymphs, & hundred Muses inne,
Sunk down by Chamus brinks; with him his deare,
Deare Thirsil lay; oft times would he begin
To cure his grief, and better way advise;
But still his words, when his sad friend he spies,
Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watrie eyes.

2