Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 5

 

Padavali

 

 

(1)

 

Even like a drop of water into burning sands.

       Am I in the midst of sons and friends and women.

I have turned my mind from you and bestowed it upon them.

       Of what earthly use shall I be now?

 

Oh Lord of Love, hopelessness is my doom!

But you are the Saviour of the worlds­ –

ever kind to the destitute.

Now my whole trust lies in you alone.

 

Half of my life I spent in sleep,

The rest in infancy and old age

And with women in pleasure-groves;

I had no time to give to you.

 

Countless are the Gods who die and pass!

But you have no beginning, nor end:

All are born in you and die again in you,

Even as waves upon the seas.

 

Vidyapati in dread of the last summons, cries:

There is no way out for me but Thee alone.

They say, you are the Lord, the beginning,

              the beginningless,

To save the world is the burden you have taken

              upon yourself.

 

                                                                                         VIDYAPATI

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(2)

O my sister, ask me not how I feel!

But the sweetness of it, as I try to tell it,

       turns ever new at each moment!

Since my very birth I have gazed and gazed upon the Beauty,

       but my eyes are never satisfied;

For aeons and aeons, I laid heart upon heart

       but the heart is not appeased,

Night on night I passed in utter ravishment

       but I could never seize the sense of the game.

Oh, the experts speak in praise of the nectar

       but none has spotted it anywhere!

Vidyapati says, of the soul's satisfaction

       not even one in a million possessed it.

 

                                                                                      VIDYAPATI

 

 

 

(3)

 

O my sister, there is no end to my sorrows!

This is the season, this is the month

Filled to the brim with the rains. . .

And my own home is empty!

Ceaseless the clouds roar and rumble,

The whole world is overflooded:

But my beloved is away and cruel Cupid

aims at me his sharpest arrows!

Thunderclaps burst in hundreds and gladden

the peacock to a maddening dance;

the frogs are drunk and the drakes cry hoarse,

0 my poor heart is about to burst!

Masses of darkness load the black night,

the lightnings never rest in their lengthening chains.

Vidyapati says how shall you without the divine comrade

pass your days and nights!

 

                                                                                                  VIDYAPATI

 

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(4)

 

Love dwells upon Love

And upon Love again dwells the spirit:

Upon the spirit dwells the spirit

And upon the spirit dwells the Bliss.

 

Within the heart stays delight,

Upon the delight dwells the Flow;

And upon the Flow dwells the Fount

But who could sense the happiness there!

 

Flowers dwell upon flowers

And upon the flowers dwells the sweet scent

Upon the scent dwell the Four Letters;

It is a riddle to spell!

 

The shore dwells upon the shore,

And upon the Shore dwell the waves.

Waves dwell upon waves­ –

Only a few know of it!

 

The Two dwell upon two:

Some may guess something of it:

Upon these dwells the Love

Thus speaks the twice born Chandidas!

 

                                                                                  CHANDIDAS

 

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