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Uloupie
CANTO I Under the high and gloomy eastern hills The portals of Pataala are and there The Bhogavathie with her sinuous waves Rises, a river alien to the sun, And often to its strange and gleaming sands Uloupie came, weary of those dim shades And great disastrous caverns neighbouring Hell, Avid of sunlight. Through the grasses long She glided and her fierce and gorgeous hood Gleamed with a perilous beauty and a light Above the green spikes of the grass; often In the slow sinuous waters she was spied Swimming, with mystic dusky hair and cheeks That had no rose, — one shoulder’s dipping glow Through water and one white breast hardly seen. But as she swam she looked towards the west Dreaming of daily sunlight and of flowers That need soft rain and of the night with stars, A friendly darkness and the season’s change In beautiful Aryavertha far away, The country of the Gods, and yet sometimes Vaguely expectant to the southward gazed.
Then into heaven dim-featured twilight came And in her city mid the eastern hills Chitrangada awoke and saw the dawn Presaged in bleakness. From Urjoona’s arms Unclasping her rose-white smooth limbs, she looked Into the opening world; but all was grey And formless. Then into her mood there passed The spirit of the gloomy northern hills Burdening her breasts with terror and her heart Was bared to insight, and new-heard a moan Of waters and remembered pain. The sad Prophecies of the pale astrologers
Page – 165 Haunted her with affliction, and she found Pale hints of absence from the twilight drawn. But now the hero felt his clasp a void And on one arm half-rising searched the grey Unlidded darkness for the face; then spoke Slowly her name, “How has the unborn day Called thee, beloved, that thou standest dumb In the grey light like one whose joy is far? Come hither.” Silently she came and knelt And laid her quiet cheek upon his breast. He felt her tears, wondering; and she replied, “Ah, dost thou love me and a moment brief Of absence troubles even in sleep thy heart Waking to emptiness? And yet, ah God, How easily that void will soon be filled! For thou wilt like a glorious burning move Through cities and through regions like a star, Careless in thy heroic strength o’er all The beautiful country Aryavertha. Women Will see thy face and strangely, swiftly drawn Thy masculine attraction feel and bow Over thy feet. For thou wilt come to them A careless glory taking women’s hearts As one breaks from a tree the wayside flowers, And smile, securely kind, even as a god Might draw a mortal maiden to his arms And marry his immortal mouth to hers. Then will thy destiny seize thee; thou wilt pass Like some great light in heaven, leaving behind A splendid memory of force and fire. And thou wilt fill thy soul with battle, august Misfortunes and tremendous harms embrace, Experience mighty raptures and at last Upon some world-renowned far-rumoured field Empire for ever win or lose, nor all The while think once of my forgotten face.” She ceased and wept; he said, touching her hair,
Page – 166 “What wast thou musing, O Chitrangada, Lonely beside the window and thine eyes Looked out on the half-formed aspect of things Twixt light and darkness? Do not so again. For bleak and dreadful is the hour ere dawn And one who gazes out then from his sweet, Warm, happy, bounded human room, is touched With awful memories that he cannot grasp And mighty sorrows without form, the sense Of an original vastness desolate, Bleak labour and a sad unfinished world. Dwell not with these again, but when thou wakest And seest the unholy hour pallid gaze Into thy room, draw closer to my bosom Waking with kisses and with joy surround Thy soul until God rises with the sun. Friendly to mortals is the living sun’s Great brilliant light; but this pale hour was made For slowly-dying men whose lone chilled souls Grow near to that greyness and dumb mourners Unfriended.” But Chitrangada replied, “I looked into the dawn and had a dream. Thou wast gone far from me; too well I knew That sound of trampling horsehooves in the north And victor rumours of thy chariot shook The hearts of distant kings. I sat alone At this pale window and about me saw My city and our low familiar hills. Yet these were but as objects painted in Upon the eye, and round me I beheld The gloomy northern mountains with their mists And sorrowful embracing rains and heard With melancholy voices rolling down The waters of a dull, ill-omened stream Sinuous and eddies alien to the sun. That thou wilt pass from me I know, nor would I stay thee, had I power: for if today
Page – 167 I held thy feet, yet as the seasons passed, The impulse of thy mighty life would come Upon thee like a wind and drive thee forth To love and battle and disastrous deeds And all the giant anguish that preserves This world. Thou as resistlessly wast born To these things as the leopard sleek to strength And beauty and fierceness, as resistlessly As women are to love; though well they know Pain for the end, yet knowing still must love. Ah swiftly pass. Why shouldst thou linger here Vainly? How will it serve God’s purpose in thee To tarry soothing for such brief while longer Merely a woman’s heart; meanwhile perhaps Lose some great moment of thy life which once Neglected never can return.” She ceased And strove to conquer overmastering tears. He was silent a little, then his eyes Strained towards the dim-seen fairness of her face, Saying, “O little loving child, who once Wast simply glad to love and feel my kiss! But now thou mournest, art in one night changed. Thou wast not wont to leave my arms ere dawn And dream of sorrow. Rather wast thou fain Of all my bosom and the gazing light Hardly could force away thy obstinate clasp. Yet now thou speakst of absence easily. Is my love faded? Dost thou feel my arms Looser about thee, my beloved? Nay, Thou knowest that not less but more I love thee Than when to eastern Monipura far I came, a wandering prince companioned only By courage and my sword and found thee here, O sweet young sovereign, ruling with pure eyes And little maiden hand, fragile and mild, A strong and savage nation. At my call Unquestioning thou camest, oh, meekly down
Page – 168 Leaving tremendous seat and austere powers, Contented at my feet to dwell and feel My kisses on thy hair, and couldst renounce Thy glorious girdle for my simple arms. O fair young soul, candid and meek and frank Thy love was, opening to me fragrantly Like flowers to the sun, wide-orbed, and yielded Thy whole self up. Yet now thou speakest sadly Too like a mind matured by thought and pain.”
He ceased, covering her bosom with his hands, And she trembled, and broke out faltering. “O endlessness of moments and the long Rain-haunted nights when thou art far! O me And the pale dreadful dawn when I shall wake In the grey hour and feel myself alone For ever! Yet O my rapture and pride! O prince, O hero, O strong protagonist of earth! World-conqueror! and in heaven immortal lips Burning have kissed thy feet, but I possessed. God knows that I have loved thee, not with grudging Piecemeal reluctant cessions of the soul As ordinary women love, but greatly With one glad falling at my conqueror’s feet All suddenly and warmly like the Spring. Ah God, thy beauty when it dawned on me And I obeyed thy bright attraction! felt Thy face like the great moon that draws the tides! Facing our armed senate, bow in hand Leaned on a pillar with a banner’s pomp Seeming to mingle in thy hair thou stoodst Expectant, careless, and thy strong gracious face Was brilliant like a sudden god’s. And half I rose up as one called. But even then Through all the hushed assembly ran a murmur, An impulse and a movement and with cries Round thee my strong barbarian nobles pressed
Page – 169 Offering fierce homage. But I sat alone, Abandoned, with a wounded sad delight, Loving thy glory, like a young warrior conquered In battle by the hero he admires. Thou tookst me by the hand and ledst me down From the high daïs and the ancient throne: Faltering I went with meek submissive eyes.” Then strong Urjoon: “Beloved, and was this not Dearer, a woman’s bliss in her one lord Than ruling all those kings? Dost thou not choose Rather thy body by my kisses wakened Than those free virgin and unconscious limbs? Ah wherefore shouldst thou dream of love cut short And joy without its sequel? Rather think That thy young passion shall to matron bloom Live warmly enriched and beautifully changed When thou with the hushed wonder of motherhood Touching thy sweet young eyes holdst up to me Returning from high battle to thine arms A creature of our own.” And she answered With a low sob, “Would God that it might be! But though I loved thee I have known I was No real part of thy great days; only A bosom on which thou hast lain ere riding To battle, a face which thou hast loved and passed. Hero, take up thy bow! Warrior, arise! Proceed with thy majestic mission. Thou From many mighty spirits wast selected And mayst not for a transient joy renounce The anguish and the crown. But I shall witness Thy far-off pomps, not utterly alone; As herdsmen pausing under quiet leaves Watch the stupendous passage of a host, Shrill neigh of horses, chariots swift and men Marching, and hear great conchshells blown, and look Into the burning eyes of kings. Some wave Of thy vast fate perhaps shall roll thee here
Page – 170 Ere all is over; for the long round of things Brings a changed soul in man to old unaltered Places, and objects cared for once; then, then We touching hands in the old way, yet changed, Shall wonder in each other’s eyes to find Strange kindlings and the buried deeps of love.” She ended and Urjoona for a moment Beheld vast Aryavertha as if mapped Before him, rivers, heaven-invading hills And cities ancient as their skies; then turned And drawing to his bosom Chitrangada With his calm strength surrounding her replied: “This may be; yet, O woman, O delight, Remember to rejoice! Flowers die, beloved, To live again; therefore hold fast to love, Hold fast the blooming of thy life in love. The soul’s majestic progress moulding doom Is with the frailest flower helped that blows In frankness. Therefore is the woman’s part Nearest divine, who to one motion keeps And like the fixed immortal planets’ round Is constant to herself in him she loves. Nor though fate call me hence, have I in vain Loved thee, young virgin of the hills, and snared Thy feet with kisses; though my soul from thee Adventure journeying like a star the void, — As ’tis our spirit’s fate ever to roam Seeking bright portions of ourself, which found The strong heart cherishes until his close. Relinquish nothing grasped; who yieldeth aught To fate or weakness, misses the great goal; — So have I planted thee within my heart, O tender beauty, and shall not lightly lose. Though years divide us and the slow upgrowth Of overlaying thoughts submerge the peace, The sweet and mutual self — yet the old joy Lives like Valmekie in his mound, — the sage,
Page – 172 Buried, forgot, but murmuring the name. Let us not lose then, O Chitrangada, One moment’s possibility of love Which being squandered, we shall then regret. Fate that united once, may when she will Divorce, but cannot the sweet meaning spoil Of these warm kisses.” He embraced her wholly Confounding her with bliss; so for that time The Shadow fled and joy forgot his close. But one pale morn Chitrangada rose wan And to the stable through the grey hushed place Descending, with her little deft hands yoked Urjoona’s coursers to the car, — persuading Thrust in their whinnying mouths the bit, fastened The traces, harmonised the reins, then led Into the sad dim court trampling his steeds; And with a strange deep look of love and hate Caressing said, faint with her unshed tears: “You brought him here who now shall bear away, O horses yoked to fate. How often yet Will you deceive us shaking wide your manes And trampling over women’s hearts with hooves Thunderous towards battle? Yet your breed perhaps Shall bring him to my wrinkled age.” And now Urjoona came: his mailed and resonant tread Rang in her very heart, his corslet blazed Towards the chill skies and his heroic form Seemed to consent with the surrounding hills. But in the marble face and eyes august The light of his tremendous fate had dawned Like a great sunrise. Calm her shuddering body He took into his bosom and with no word Under the witnessing, unmoved heavens Kissed her pale lips. Then to his car he rose. And now she did not weep, but silently Took and returned his kiss. So he went forth. Thundering the great wheels jarred upon the stones
Page – 172 Of the wide court and echoes filled the air With a triumph of warlike sound. Outside, The city’s nobles, waiting, saw the car Emerge, and bowed down to their king. They spoke No word, but stood austerely watching still, A mist over their stern and savage eyes, His going, as men in darkness watch a light Carried away that cheered them for an hour, Then turned back homeward. But Chitrangada Waited till the last thunders died away And far off on a hill the warlike flag Waved in the breeze and dipped below the edge; Then to her chamber slowly went alone.
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