Former Cloud

On Rama's shady peak where hermits roam,
Mid streams by Sita's bathing sanctified,
An erring Yaksha made his hapless home,
Doomed by his master humbly to abide,
And spend a long, long year of absence from his bride.

Some months were gone; the lonely lover's pain
Had loosed his golden bracelet day by day
Ere he beheld the harbinger of rain,
A cloud that charged the peak in mimic fray,
As an elephant attacks a bank of earth in play.

Before this cause of lovers' hopes and fears
Long time Kubera's bondman sadly bowed
In meditation, choking down his tears--
Even happy hearts thrill strangely to the cloud;
To him, poor wretch, the loved embrace was disallowed.

Longing to save his darling's life, unblest
With joyous tidings, through the rainy days,
He plucked fresh blossoms for his cloudy guest,
Such homage as a welcoming comrade pays,
And bravely spoke brave words of greeting and of praise.

Nor did it pass the lovelorn Yaksha's mind
How all unfitly might his message mate
With a cloud, mere fire and water, smoke and wind--
Ne'er yet was lover could discriminate
'Twixt life and lifeless things, in his love-blinded state.

I know, he said, thy far-famed princely line,
Thy state, in heaven's imperial council chief,
Thy changing forms; to thee, such fate is mine,
I come a suppliant in my widowed grief--
Better thy lordly "no" than meaner souls' relief.

O cloud, the parching spirit stirs thy pity;
My bride is far, through royal wrath and might;
Bring her my message to the Yaksha city,
Rich-gardened Alaka, where radiance bright
From Shiva's crescent bathes the palaces in light.

When thou art risen to airy paths of heaven,
Through lifted curls the wanderer's love shall peep
And bless the sight of thee for comfort given;
Who leaves his bride through cloudy days to weep
Except he be like me, whom chains of bondage keep?

While favouring breezes waft thee gently forth,
And while upon thy left the plover sings
His proud, sweet song, the cranes who know thy worth
Will meet thee in the sky on joyful wings
And for delights anticipated join their rings.

Yet hasten, O my brother, till thou see--
Counting the days that bring the lonely smart--
The faithful wife who only lives for me:
A drooping flower is woman's loving heart,
Upheld by the stem of hope when two true lovers part.

And when they hear thy welcome thunders break,
When mushrooms sprout to greet thy fertile weeks,
The swans who long for the Himalayan lake
Will be thy comrades to Kailasa's peaks,
With juicy bits of lotus-fibre in their beaks.

One last embrace upon this mount bestow
Whose flanks were pressed by Rama's holy feet,
Who yearly strives his love for thee to show,
Warmly his well-beloved friend to greet
With the tear of welcome shed when two long-parted meet.

Learn first, O cloud, the road that thou must go,
Then hear my message ere thou speed away;
Before thee mountains rise and rivers flow:
When thou art weary, on the mountains stay,
And when exhausted, drink the rivers' driven spray.

Elude the heavenly elephants' clumsy spite;
Fly from this peak in richest jungle drest;
And Siddha maids who view thy northward flight
Will upward gaze in simple terror, lest
The wind be carrying quite away the mountain crest.

Bright as a heap of flashing gems, there shines
Before thee on the ant-hill, Indra's bow;
Matched with that dazzling rainbow's glittering lines,
Thy sombre form shall find its beauties grow,
Like the dark herdsman Vishnu, with peacock-plumes aglow.

The farmers' wives on Mala's lofty lea,
Though innocent of all coquettish art,
Will give thee loving glances; for on thee
Depends the fragrant furrow's fruitful part;
Thence, barely westering, with lightened burden start.

The Mango Peak whose forest fires were laid
By streams of thine, will soothe thy weariness;
In memory of a former service paid,
Even meaner souls spurn not in time of stress
A suppliant friend; a soul so lofty, much the less.

With ripened mango-fruits his margins teem;
And thou, like wetted braids, art blackness quite;
When resting on the mountain, thou wilt seem
Like the dark nipple on Earth's bosom white,
For mating gods and goddesses a thrilling sight.

His bowers are sweet to forest maidens ever;
Do thou upon his crest a moment bide,
Then fly, rain-quickened, to the Reva river
Which gaily breaks on Vindhya's rocky side,
Like painted streaks upon an elephant's dingy hide.

Refresh thyself from thine exhausted state
With ichor-pungent drops that fragrant flow;
Thou shalt not then to every wind vibrate--
Empty means ever light, and full means added weight.

Spying the madder on the banks, half brown,
Half green with shoots that struggle to the birth,
Nibbling where early plantain-buds hang down,
Scenting the sweet, sweet smell of forest earth,
The deer will trace thy misty track that ends the dearth.

Though thou be pledged to ease my darling's pain,
Yet I foresee delay on every hill
Where jasmines blow, and where the peacock-train
Cries forth with joyful tears a welcome shrill;
Thy sacrifice is great, but haste thy journey still.

At thine approach, Dasharna land is blest
With hedgerows where gay buds are all aglow,
With village trees alive with many a nest
Abuilding by the old familiar crow,
With lingering swans, with ripe rose-apples' darker show.

There shalt thou see the royal city, known
Afar, and win the lover's fee complete,
If thou subdue thy thunders to a tone
Of murmurous gentleness, and taste the sweet,
Love-rippling features of the river at thy feet.

A moment rest on Nichais' mountain then,
Where madder-bushes don their blossom coat
As thrilling to thy touch; where city men
O'er youth's unbridled pleasures fondly gloat
In caverns whence the perfumes of gay women float.

Fly on refreshed; and sprinkle buds that fade
On jasmine-vines in gardens wild and rare
By forest rivers; and with loving shade
Caress the flower-girls' heated faces fair,
Whereon the lotuses droop withering from their hair.

Swerve from thy northern path; for westward rise
The palace balconies thou mayst not slight
In fair Ujjain; and if bewitching eyes
That flutter at thy gleams, should not delight
Thine amorous bosom, useless were thy gift of sight.

The neighbouring mountain stream that gliding grants
A glimpse of charms in whirling eddies pursed,
While noisy swans accompany her dance
Like a tinkling zone, will slake thy loving thirst--
A woman always tells her love in gestures first.

Thou only, happy lover! canst repair
The desolation that thine absence made:
Her shrinking current seems the careless hair
That brides deserted wear in single braid,
And dead leaves falling give her face a paler shade.

Sufficed, though fallen from heaven, to bring down heaven on earth!

Where the river-breeze at dawn, with fragrant gain
From friendly lotus-blossoms, lengthens out
The clear, sweet passion-warbling of the crane,
To cure the women's languishing, and flout
With a lover's coaxing all their hesitating doubt.

Enriched with odours through the windows drifting
From perfumed hair, and greeted as a friend
By peacock pets their wings in dances lifting,
On flower-sweet balconies thy labour end,
Where prints of dear pink feet an added glory lend.

Black as the neck of Shiva, very God,
Dear therefore to his hosts, thou mayest go
To his dread shrine, round which the gardens nod
When breezes rich with lotus-pollen blow
And ointments that the gaily bathing maidens know.

Reaching that temple at another time,
Wait till the sun is lost to human eyes;
For if thou mayest play the part sublime
Of Shiva's drum at evening sacrifice,
Then hast thou in thy thunders grave a priceless prize.

The women there, whose girdles long have tinkled
In answer to the dance, whose hands yet seize
And wave their fans with lustrous gems besprinkled,
Will feel thine early drops that soothe and please,
And recompense thee from black eyes like clustering bees.

Clothing thyself in twilight's rose-red glory,
Embrace the dancing Shiva's tree-like arm;
He will prefer thee to his mantle gory
And spare his grateful goddess-bride's alarm,
Whose eager gaze will manifest no fear of harm.

Where women steal to rendezvous by night
Through darkness that a needle might divide,
Show them the road with lightning-flashes bright
As golden streaks upon the touchstone's side--
But rain and thunder not, lest they be terrified.

On some rich balcony where sleep the doves,
Through the dark night with thy beloved stay,
The lightning weary with the sport she loves;
But with the sunrise journey on thy way--
For they that labour for a friend do not delay.

The gallant dries his mistress' tears that stream
When he returns at dawn to her embrace--
Prevent thou not the sun's bright-fingered beam
That wipes the tear-dew from the lotus' face;
His anger else were great, and great were thy disgrace.

Thy winsome shadow-soul will surely find
An entrance in Deep River's current bright,
As thoughts find entrance in a placid mind;
Then let no rudeness of thine own affright
The darting fish that seem her glances lotus-white.

But steal her sombre veil of mist away,
Although her reeds seem hands that clutch the dress
To hide her charms; thou hast no time to stay,
Yet who that once has known a dear caress
Could bear to leave a woman's unveiled loveliness?

The breeze 'neath which the breathing acre grants
New odours, and the forest figs hang sleek,
With pleasant whistlings drunk by elephants
Through long and hollow trunks, will gently seek
To waft thee onward fragrantly to Holy Peak.

There change thy form; become a cloud of flowers
With heavenly moisture wet, and pay the meed
Of praise to Skanda with thy blossom showers;
That sun-outshining god is Shiva's seed,
Fire-born to save the heavenly hosts in direst need.

God Skanda's peacock--he whose eyeballs shine
By Shiva's moon, whose flashing fallen plume
The god's fond mother wears, a gleaming line
Over her ear beside the lotus bloom--
Will dance to thunders echoing in the caverns' room.

Adore the reed-born god and speed away,
While Siddhas flee, lest rain should put to shame
The lutes which they devoutly love to play;
But pause to glorify the stream whose name
Recalls the sacrificing emperor's blessed fame.

Narrow the river seems from heaven's blue;
And gods above, who see her dainty line
Matched, when thou drinkest, with thy darker hue,
Will think they see a pearly necklace twine
Round Earth, with one great sapphire in its midst ashine.

Beyond, the province of Ten Cities lies
Whose women, charming with their glances rash,
Will view thine image with bright, eager eyes,
Dark eyes that dance beneath the lifted lash,
As when black bees round nodding jasmine-blossoms flash.

Then veil the Hallowed Land in cloudy shade;
Visit the field where to this very hour
Lie bones that sank beneath the soldier's blade,
Where Arjuna discharged his arrowy shower
On men, as thou thy rain-jets on the lotus-flower.

Sweet friend, drink where those holy waters shine
Which the plough-bearing hero--loath to fight
His kinsmen--rather drank than sweetest wine
With a loving bride's reflected eyes alight;
Then, though thy form be black, thine inner soul is bright.

Fly then where Ganges o'er the king of mountains
Falls like a flight of stairs from heaven let down
For the sons of men; she hurls her billowy fountains
Like hands to grasp the moon on Shiva's crown
And laughs her foamy laugh at Gauri's jealous frown.

If thou, like some great elephant of the sky,
Shouldst wish from heaven's eminence to bend
And taste the crystal stream, her beauties high--
As thy dark shadows with her whiteness blend--
Would be what Jumna's waters at Prayaga lend.

Her birth-place is Himalaya's rocky crest
Whereon the scent of musk is never lost,
For deer rest ever there where thou wilt rest
Sombre against the peak with whiteness glossed,
Like dark earth by the snow-white bull of Shiva tossed.

If, born from friction of the deodars,
A scudding fire should prove the mountain's bane,
Singeing the tails of yaks with fiery stars,
Quench thou the flame with countless streams of rain--
The great have power that they may soothe distress and pain.

If mountain monsters should assail thy path
With angry leaps that of their object fail,
Only to hurt themselves in helpless wrath,
Scatter the creatures with thy pelting hail--
For who is not despised that strives without avail?

Bend lowly down and move in reverent state
Round Shiva's foot-print on the rocky plate
With offerings laden by the saintly great;
The sight means heaven as their eternal fate
When death and sin are past, for them that faithful wait.

The breeze is piping on the bamboo-tree;
And choirs of heaven sing in union sweet
O'er demon foe of Shiva's victory;
If thunders in the caverns drumlike beat,
Then surely Shiva's symphony will be complete.

Pass by the wonders of the snowy slope;
Through the Swan-gate, through mountain masses rent
To make his fame a path by Bhrigu's hope
In long, dark beauty fly, still northward bent,
Like Vishnu's foot, when he sought the demon's chastisement.

Seek then Kailasa's hospitable care,
With peaks by magic arms asunder riven,
To whom, as mirror, goddesses repair,
So lotus-bright his summits cloud the heaven,
Like form and substance to God's daily laughter given.

Like powder black and soft I seem to see
Thine outline on the mountain slope as bright
As new-sawn tusks of stainless ivory;
No eye could wink before as fair a sight
As dark-blue robes upon the Ploughman's shoulder white.

Should Shiva throw his serpent-ring aside
And give Gauri his hand, go thou before
Upon the mount of joy to be their guide;
Conceal within thee all thy watery store
And seem a terraced stairway to the jewelled floor.

I doubt not that celestial maidens sweet
With pointed bracelet gems will prick thee there
To make of thee a shower-bath in the heat;
Frighten the playful girls if they should dare
To keep thee longer, friend, with thunder's harshest blare.

Drink where the golden lotus dots the lake;
Serve Indra's elephant as a veil to hide
His drinking; then the tree of wishing shake,
Whose branches like silk garments flutter wide:
With sports like these, O cloud, enjoy the mountain side.

Then, in familiar Alaka find rest,
Down whom the Ganges' silken river swirls,
Whose towers cling to her mountain lover's breast,
While clouds adorn her face like glossy curls
And streams of rain like strings of close-inwoven pearls.