The Birth of Kumāra 4.28

4.28

ayi samprati dehi darśanaṃ smara paryutsuka eṣa mādhavaḥ |
dayitāsvanavasthitaṃ nṛṇāṃ na khalu prema calaṃ suhṛjjane ||

"Turn, gentle friend, thy weeping eyes, and see
That dear companion who was all to me—
His crumbling dust with which the breezes play.
Bearing it idly in their course away—
White as the silver feathers of a dove.
Is all that 's left me of my murdered love!
Now come, my Káma,—Spring, who was so dear,
Longs to behold thee—oh, appear, appear!
Fickle to women Love perchance may bend
His ear to listen to a faithful friend.
Remember, lie walked ever at thy side
O'er bloomy meadows in the warm spring-tide,
That Gods above, and men, and fiends below
Should own the empire of thy mighty bow.
That ruthless bow, which pierces to the heart,
Strung with a lotus-thread, a flower its dart.
As dies a torch when winds sweep roughly by,
So is my light for ever fled, and I,
The lamp his cheering rays no more illume,
Am wrapt in darkness, misery, and gloom.
Fate took my love, and spared the widow's breath.
Yet fate is guilty of a double death;
When the wild monster tramples on the ground
The tree some creeper garlands closely round,
Reft of the guardian which it thought so true,
Forlorn and withered, it must perish too.
Then come, dear friend, the true one's pile prepare,
And send me quickly to my husband there;
Call it not vain—the mourning Lotus dies
When the bright Moon, her lover, quits the skies;
When sinks the red cloud in the purple west,
Still clings his bride, the lightning, to his breast—
All nature keeps the eternal high decree.
Shall woman fail?—I come, my love, to thee!
Now on the pile my faint limbs will I throw.
Clasping his ashes—lovely even so,—
As if beneath my weary frame were spread
Soft leaves and blossoms for a flowery bed;
And oh, dear comrade (for in happier hours
Oft have I heaped a pleasant bed of flowers
For thee and him beneath the spreading tree)
Now quickly raise the pile for Love and me!
And in thy mercy gentle breezes send
To fan the flame that wafts away thy friend,
And shorten the sad moments that divide
Impatient Káma from his Reti's side;
Set water near us in a single urn,
We'll sip in heaven from the same in turn,
And to his spirit let thine offering be
Sprays fresh and lovely from the Mango tree,
Culled when the round young buds begin to swell,
For Káma loved those fragrant blossoms well."