The
Birth of the War-God
canto
one
:
third rendering
A God concealed in mountain
majesty,
Embodied to our cloudy physical
sight
In dizzy summits and
green-gloried slopes,
Measuring the earth in an
enormous ease,
Immense Himaloy dwells and in
the moan
Of western waters and in eastern
floods
Plunges his hidden spurs. Such
is his strength1
High-piled or thousand-crested
is his look
That with the scaling greatness
of his peaks
He seems to uplift to heaven our
prostrate soil.
He mounts from the green luxury
of his vales,
Ambitious of the skies; naked
and lost
The virgin chill immensity of
snow
Covers the breathless spirit of
his heights.
To snows his savage pines
aspire; the birch
And all the hardy brotherhood
which climb
Against the angry muttering of
the winds,
Challenge the dangerous air in
which they h've.
He is sated with the silence of
the stars:
Lower he dips into life's
beauty, far
Below he hears the cascades, now
he clothes
His rugged sides the gentle
breezes kiss
With soft grass and the gold and
silver fern.
Holding upon her breast the
hill-god's feet
Earth in her tresses hides his
giant knees.
Over lakes of mighty sleep,
where fountains lapse,
Dreaming, and by the noise of
waterfalls,
In an unspoken solitary joy
He listens to her chant. The
distant hills
Imagined him the calf to which
she lows
When the wideness milks her
udders and (Meru is near
The heavenly unseen height; like
visible hints
Of his great subtle growths of
peace and joy
' Of such a strength
Page – 113
His dreaming woods arise;) gems
brilliant-rayed
She yields and herbs on every
mountain marge.
He gives his colours to the
Apsara's grace.
The smooth gold of her limbs
with harder hues
Stolen from his mineral rocks
she loves to stain.
Reflections of those brilliant
colourings
Oft on the hangings of the
cloudy heavens
Like an untimely sunset's
glories lie.1
In such warm infinite riches is
he dressed
His fire of life from his cold
heights of thought
The great snows cannot slay its
opulence.
Though stark they chill the feet
of heaven, her sons
Forgive the fault amid a throng
of joys
As faints from our charmed sense
in luminous floods
The gloomy mark2 on
the moon's argent disk,
They have forgot his chill
severity
In sweetness which escapes from
him in life.
For as from passion of some
austere soul
Delight and love have stolen to
rapturous birth,
From ice-born waters his
delicious vales
Are fed. Indulgent like the
smile of God,
White grandeurs overlook wild
green romance.
He keeps his summits for
immortal steps,
The life of man upon his happy
slopes
Roams wild and bare and free,
the life of gods
Prone from the unattainable
summits climbs
Down the rude greatness of his
huge rock-park
As if rejecting the glory of its
veils
It peeps out from the subtle
gleam of air,
Visible to man by waterfall and
glade,
And finds us in the hush of
sleeping woods,
And meets us with low
whisperings in the night
1 The glamoured splendour
of his mineral rocks
Reflecting all its
brilliant colourings
Upon the hangings
of the cloudy heavens
Like an untimely
sunset's glories sleeps.
2
stain
Page – 114
Of their surrounding presence
unaware.
Chasing the dreadful wanderers
of the hill
The hunter seeks for traces on
his side,
He, though soft-falling innocent
snows weep off
The cruelty of their red
footprints, finds
The path his prey the mighty
lions go.
For glittering pearls from the
felled elephants
Lain clotted, dropping from the
hollow claws
Betray1 their
dangerous passage. When he sits
Tired of the hunt on a slain
poplar's base
And bares to winds the weariness
of his brow
They come fay-breezes dancing on
the slopes,
Scattering the peacock's
gorgeous-plumed attire,
Shaking the cedars on Himaloy's
breast,
With spray from Ganges' cascades
on their wings,
To kiss2 the
wind-blown tangles of his hair,
Sprinkling their coolness on his
soul. He has made
The grottoed glens his chambers
of desire,
He has packed their dumbness
with his passionate bliss;
Stone witnesses of ecstasy they
sleep.
And wonderful luminous herbs
from night's dim banks
Give light to see the joy those
thrilled rocks keep
When the strong forest-wanderer
is lain
Twined with his love, marrying
with hers his sighs,
Moved to desire in their stony
dreams.
Nor only human footsteps tread
the grass
Upon his slopes, nor only mortal
love
Finds there the lovely setting
of the hills
Amid the broken caverns and the
trees,
In the weird moonlight pouring
from the clouds
And the clear sunlight glancing
from the pines
A wandering choir, a flash of
unseen forms,
Go sweeping sometimes they and
leave our hearts
Startled with hintings of some
greater life,
The Kinnar passes singing in his
glades.
Then stirred to repeat the
echoes of their voice,3
'recall
2
They drive
3 Then stirred to keep some sweetness of
their voice,
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He fills the hollows of his
bamboo stems
With the wind sobbing from the
deep ravines
And in a moaning and melodious
sound
Breathes from his rocky mouths,
as if he meant
To flute, tune-giver to wild
minstrelsies.
The delicate heels of the maned
Kinnari
Are with his frosted slabs of
snow distressed.
But with the large load of her
breasts and hips
To escape the biting pathway's
chill unease
She is forbidden: she must not
break the grace
Of her slow1 motion's
tardy rich appeal.
She too in grottoed caverns lies
embraced,
Forced from the shame-fast
sweetness of her limbs
The subtle raiment leaves her
fainting hands
To give her tremulous beauty to
the gaze
Of her eternal lover. But thick
clouds
Stoop hastily bowed to the rocky
doors
And hang chance curtains against
mortal eyes,
Shielding the naked goddess from
our sight.
The birch-leaves of his hills
love-pages are.
In ink of liquid metals letters
strange
We see make crimson signs; they
lie in wait
Upon the slopes, pages where
passion burns,
The flushed epistles of
enamoured gods
Where divine Circes pen
heart-moving things.
The Apsaras rhyme out their
wayward dance,
The smooth gold of their limbs
by harder hues
Of minerals stained, attracting
seize
The curious fancy in love's
straying eyes.
When far down the clouds droop
to his girdle waist
Holding the tearful burden of
their hearts,
Drifting grey melancholy through
the skies,2
There by the low-hung plateaus' wideness lain
The siddhas in soft shade
repose, or flee
Soon up chased by wild driving
rain for refuge
To summits splendid in the
veilless sun.
Earth's mighty animal life has
reached his woods.
1
dumb 2 air,
Page – 116
The lion on Himaloy keeps his
lair,
The elephant herds there wander.
Oozing trees
Wounded by stormy rubbings of
the tuskers' brows
Loose down their odorous tears
in creamy drops,
And winds upon the plateau
burdened pant
Weaving the air into a scented
dream.
The yaks are there; they lift
their bushy tails
To lash the breeze and scatter
gleamings white:
With candour casting snares for
heart and eye
The moonbeams lie upon the
sleeping hills.
Like souls divine who in a sweet
excess
All-clasping draw their fallen
enemies
Into1 the impartial
refuge of their love
Out of the ordered cruelties of
life,
He takes into his cavern bosom
hunted night.
Afraid of heaven's radiant eyes,
crouched up,
She cowers in Nature's great
subliminal gloom,
A trembling fugitive from the
ardent day,
Lest one embrace should
change her into light.
Himaloy's peaks outpeer the
circling sun.
He with his upstretched
brilliant hands awakes
Immortal lilies in the unreached
tarns,
Morning has found miraculous
blooms unculled
By the seven sages in their
starry march.
Such are the grandeurs of
Himaloy's soul,
Such are his divine moods;
moonlit he bears,
Of godward symbols the exalted
source,
The mystic Soma-plant upon his
heights.
He by the Father of sacrifice
climbs crowned,
Headman and dynast of earth's
soaring hills.
These were the scenes in which
the Lovers met.
here lonely mused the silent
Soul of all,
And to awake him from his
boundless trance
Took woman's form the beauty of
the world;
Then infinite sweetness bore a
living shape;
She made her body perfect for
his arms.
1'To
Page – 117
With equal rites he to his giant
bed
That mind-born child of the
world-fathers bore.
Mena, a goddess of devising
heart,
Whom for her wisdom brooding
seers adored,
The shapers of all living
images,
He sought, Mena named.
They knew him for the peer
Of Meru, their sublime celestial
home,
They gave him one, their
thought's sweet-visioned pride,
Whose womb made steadfast like
himself his race.
Their joys of love were like
themselves immense,
Then in the wide felicitous
lapse of time
The happy tumult of her being
tossed
In long and puissant ecstasies
bore fruit,
Bearing the banner of her
unchanged youth
And beauty to charmed motherhood
she crossed.
Mainac she bore the guest of the
deep seas,
Upon whose peaks the
serpent-women play,
Race of a cavernous and
monstrous world,
With strange eyes gleaming past
the glaucous wave,
And jewelled tresses glittering
through the foam.
Not that his natural air who
great had grown
Amid the brilliant perils of the
sun,
From Indra tearing the great
mountains' wings
With which they soared against
the threatened sky,
Below the slippery fields the
fugitive sank,
His sheltered essence bore no
cruel sign,
Nor felt the anguish of the
heavenly scars.
They disappointed of that first1
desire
Mixed in a greater2
joy. It took not earth
For narrow base, but forced the
heavens down
Into their passion-trance
clasped on the couch
Calm and stupendous of the
snow-cold heights.
Then to a nobler load her womb
gave place.
For Daksha's daughter, Shiva's
wife, had left
Her body lifeless in her
father's hall
In that proud sacrifice and
fatal, she
The undivided mother infinite,
1
former 2 larger
Page – 118
Indignant for his severing
thought of God.
Now in a trance profound of joy
by her
Conceived she sprang again to a
livelier birth
To heal the sorrow and the dumb
divorce.
Out of the unseen soul the
splendid child
Came like bright lightning from
the invisible air,
Welcome as Fortune to an earthly
king
When she is born with daring for
her sire
And for her mother policy
sublime.
Then was their festival holiday
in the world,
Then were the regions subtle
with delight:
Heaven's shells blew sweetly
through the stainless air
And flowery rain came drifting
down; Earth thrilled
Back ravished to the rapture of
the skies,
And all her moving and unmoving
life
Felt happiness because the Bride
was born.
So that fair mother by this
daughter shone,
So her young beauty radiated its
beams
As might a land of lapis lazuli
Torn by the thunder's voice. As
from the earth
Tender and green an infant lance
of life,
A jewelled sprouting from the
mother slab
The divine child lay .on her
mother's breast.
They called her Parvati, the
mountain child,
When love to love cried answer
in the house
And to the sound she turned her
lovely face.
A riper day the great maternal
name
Of Uma brought. Her father
banqueted
Upon her as she grew his
sateless1 eyes,
Who saw his life like a large
lamp by her
Fulfilled in light; like
Heaven's silent path
By Ganges voiceful grown his
soul rejoiced;
It flowered like a great and
shapeless thought
Suddenly immortal in a perfect
word.
Wherever her bright laughing
body rolled,
Wherever faltered her sweet
tumbling steps,
All eyes were drawn to her like
winging bees
' unsated
Page – 119
Which sailing come upon the
wanderer wind
Amid the infinite sweets of
honeyed spring
To choose the mango-flowers'
delicious breast.
Increasing to new curves of
loveliness
Fast grew like the moon's
arc from day to day
Her childish limbs. Along
the wonderful glens
Among her fair companions of
delight
Bounding she strayed, or
stooped by murmurous waves
To build frail walls on
Ganges' heavenly sands,
Or ran to seize the tossing
ball, or pleased
With puppet children her
maternal mind
And easily out of that
earlier time
All sciences and wisdoms
crowding came
Into her growing thoughts
like swans that haste
In autumn to a sacred
river's shores.
They started from her soul
as grow at night
Born from some luminous herb
its glimmering rays.
Her mind, her limbs betrayed
themselves divine.
Thus she prepared her spirit
for mighty life,
Wandering at will in freedom
like a deer
On Nature's summits, in
enchanted glens,
Absorbed in play, the Mother
of the world.
Then youth a
charm upon her body came
Adorning every limb, a heady
wine
Of joy intoxicating to the
heart,
Maddened the eyes that
gazed, from every limb
Shot the fine arrows of
Love's curving bow.
Her forms into a perfect
roundness grew
And opened up sweet colour,
grace and light.
So might a painting grow
beneath the hand
Of some great master, so a
lotus opens
Its bosom to the splendour
of the sun.
On the enamoured earth at
every step her feet
Threw a red rose, like magic
flowers they went
Moving from spot to spot
their petalled bloom.
Her motion from the queenly
swans had learned
Its wanton swayings;
musically it timed
Page – 120
The sweet-voiced anklets'
murmuring refrain.
And1 rising to
that amorous support
From moulded knee to ankle
the supreme
Divinely lessening curve so
lovely was
It looked as if on this
alone were spent
All her Creator's cunning.
Well the rest
Might tax his labour to
build half such grace!
Yet was that miracle
accomplished. Soft
In roundedness, warm in
their smooth sweep, her thighs
Were without parallel in
Nature's work.
The greatness of her hips on
which life's girdle
Had found its ample rest,
deserved already
The lap of divine love where
she alone
Might hope one day embosomed
by God to lie.
Deep was her hollowed navel
where wound in
Above her raiment's knot the
tender line
Of down slighter than that
dark beam cast forth
From the blue jewel central
in her zone.
Her waist was like an
altar's middle and there
A triple stair of love was
softly built.
Her twin large breasts were
pale with darkened paps
They would not let the
slender lotus thread
Find passage, on their
either side there waited
Tenderer than delicatest
flowers the arms
Which Love must turn,2
victorious in defeat,
His chains to bind down the
Eternal's neck.
Her throat adorning all the
pearls it wore,
With sweep and undulation to
the breast
Outmatched the gleaming
roundness of its gems.
Crowning all this a
marvellous face appeared
In which the lotus found its
human bloom
In the soft lustres of the
moon. Her smile
Parted the rosy sweetness of
her lips
Like candid pearls severing
soft coral lines
Or a white flower across a
ruddy leaf.
Her speech dropped nectar
from a liquid voice
To which the coil's call
seemed rude and harsh
' Soft 2
would make,
Page – 121
And sob of smitten lyres a
tuneless sound.
The startled glance of her
long lovely eyes
Stolen from her by the swift
woodland deer
Fluttered like a blue lotus
in the wind,
And the rich pencilled
arching of her brows .
Made vain the beauty of
Love's bow. Her hair's
Dense masses put
voluptuously to shame
The mane of lions and the
drift of clouds.
He who created all this
wondrous world
Weary of scattering
perfection1 wide;
To see all beauty in a
little space
Had fashioned only her.
Called to her limbs
All possibilities of
loveliness
Had hastened to their fair
attractive seats,
And now the artist eyes that
scan all things
Saw every symbol and sweet
parallel
Of beauty only realised in
her.
Then was he satisfied and
loved his work.
The2 sages
ranging at their will the stars
Saw her and knew that this
indeed was she
Who must
become by love the beautiful half
Of the Almighty's body and
be all
His heart. This from earth's
seers of future things
Himaloy heard and his proud
hopes contemned
All other than the greatest
for her spouse.
Yet dared he not provoke
that dangerous boon
Anticipating its unwakened
hour,
But seated in the grandeur
of his hills
Like a great soul curbing
its giant hopes,
A silent sentinel of
destiny,
He watched in mighty calm
the wheeling years
She like an offering waited
for the fire,
Prepared by Time for her
approaching lord.
But the great Spirit of the
world forsaken
By that first body of the
Mother of all,
Not to her second birth yet
come, abode
1
his marvels
2 His
Page – 122
In crowded worlds ascetic,
stern,
And passionless and
unespoused,
The Master of the animal
life absorbed
In dreamings, wandering with
his demon hordes,
Desireless in the blind
desire of things.
At length like sculptured
marble still he paused,
To meditation yoked. With
ashes smeared
Clothed in the skin of
beasts
He sat a silent shape upon
the hills.
Below him curved Himadri's
slope; a soil
With fragrance of the
musk-deer odorous |
Was round, and there the
awful Splendour mused.
Mid cedars sprinkled with
the sacred dew
Of Ganges, softly murmuring
their chants
In streams subdued the
Kinnar minstrels sang.
Where oil-filled slabs were
clothed in resinous herbs,
His grisly hosts sat down,
their bodies stained
With mineral unguents; bark
their ill-shaped limbs
Clad....1
and their tremendous hands
Around their ears had
wreathed the hillside's flowers.
On the white rocks compact
of frozen snow
His great bull voicing loud
immortal pride
Pawed with his hoof the
argent soil to dust.
Alarmed the bisons fled his
gaze; he bellowed
Impatient of the mountain
lion's roar.
Concentrating his world-vast
energies,
He who gives all austerities
their fruits
Built daily his eternal
shape of flame,
In what impenetrable and
deep desire ?
The worship even of gods he
reckons not
Who on no creature leans;
yet worship still
To satisfy his awe the
mountain paused
And gave his daughter the
great Soul to serve.
She brought him daily
offerings of flowers
And holy water morn and noon
and eve
And swept the altar of the
divine fire
And plucking heaped the
outspread sacred grass,
'BIank in MS.
Page – 123
Then showering1
over his feet her falling locks
Drowned all her soft fatigue
of gentle toils
In the cool moonbeams from
the Eternal's head.
Though to austerity of
trance a peril
The touch of beauty, he
repelled her not
Surrounded by all sweetness
in the world
He can be passionless in his
large mind,
Austere, unmoved, creation's
silent king.
So had they met on the
summits of the world.
Like the still spirit and
its unawakened force
Near were they now, yet to
each other unknown,
He meditating, she in
service bowed.
Closing awhile her vast and
shadowy wings
Fate over them paused
suspended on the hills.
1
She raining
Page – 124