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| Krishna and Radha, painting by Jitendra Ramchandra Sharma |
In Vain — by Emily Dickinson
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.
I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?
Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace
Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.
They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,
Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.
And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.
And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!
Toward The Piræus — by H. D. (Hilda Dolittle)
Slay with your eyes, Greek,
men over the face of the earth,
slay with your eyes, the host,
puny, passionless, weak.
Break, as the ranks of steel
broke of the Persian host:
craven, we hated them then:
now we would count them Gods
beside these, spawn of the earth.
Grant us your mantle, Greek;
grant us but one
to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
men, craven and weak,
grant us but one to strike
one blow for you, passionate Greek.
I
You would have broken my wings,
but the very fact that you knew
I had wings, set some seal
on my bitter heart, my heart
broke and fluttered and sang.
You would have snared me,
and scattered the strands of my nest;
but the very fact that you saw,
sheltered me, claimed me,
set me apart from the rest.
Of men—of men made you a god,
and me, claimed me, set me apart
and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever—
if I escape your evil heart.
II
I loved you:
men have writ and women have said
they loved,
but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
intense and may not move;
till the fumes pass over;
and may not falter nor break,
till the priest has caught the words
that mar or make
a deme or a ravaged town;
so I, though my knees tremble,
my heart break,
must note the rumbling,
heed only the shuddering
down in the fissure beneath the rock
of the temple floor;
must wait and watch
and may not turn nor move,
nor break from my trance to speak
so slight, so sweet,
so simple a word as love.
III
What had you done
had you been true,
I can not think,
I may not know.
What could we do
were I not wise,
what play invent,
what joy devise?
What could we do
if you were great?
(Yet were you lost,
who were there, then,
to circumvent
the tricks of men?)
What can we do,
for curious lies
have filled your heart,
and in my eyes
sorrow has writ
that I am wise.
IV
If I had been a boy,
I would have worshiped your grace,
I would have flung my worship
before your feet,
I would have followed apart,
glad, rent with an ecstasy
to watch you turn
your great head, set on the throat,
thick, dark with its sinews,
burned and wrought
like the olive stalk,
and the noble chin
and the throat.
I would have stood,
and watched and watched
and burned,
and when in the night,
from the many hosts, your slaves,
and warriors and serving men
you had turned
to the purple couch and the flame
of the woman, tall like cypress tree
that flames sudden and swift and free
as with crackle of golden resin
and cones and the locks flung free
like the cypress limbs,
bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
bound, caught and riven and bound
and loosened again,
as in rain of a kingly storm
or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen
from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
you would have summoned me, me alone,
and found my hands,
beyond all the hands in the world,
cold, cold, cold,
intolerably cold and sweet.
V
It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild but fear
that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
was over-matched by yours, and your hand
skilled to yield death-blows, might break.
With the slightest turn—no ill-will meant—
my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought
fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
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| by Edna St. Vincent Millay |
Four Quartets — by T.S. Eliot
Burnt Norton
V
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
*"Beloved," says Anoushka, "was my first experience writing lyrics from scratch and fitting it to a melody. It was flute-focused and I thought it would be nice to have it be about Krishna because he's always associated with the flute. The lyrics are from the viewpoint of Radha, who's his eternal lover. She's searching for him everywhere and then she understands that the reason she hasn't been able to find him is because she's not looking within herself."
SHYAM (श्याम): Hindi name derived from the Sanskrit element syama, meaning "black, blue." In mythology, this is a name belonging to Krishna.
Beloved - lyrics Anoushka Shankar/ vocals: Swarnima Gusain
Shyam re
(O Dark one*)
Shyam re
Shyam re
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
(Let me see you, dark one)
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
( "beautiful one, beautiful one")
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
( "the sight of your eyes, the sound of your flute")
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
Satoan na tum aisay piya
(Do not torture me thus, my love)
Main hu teri bas teri
(I am yours, just yours)
Satoan na tum aisay piya
Main hu teri bas teri
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
( "dark one, beautiful one")
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Itt ud khoju piya
(Here and there I look for you, my love)
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
(Such a spell you have a cast on me)
Itt ud khoju piya
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
Samjhi ab lila tori
(Now I understand your game)
Basey morey man mein piya
(You live in my heart, my love)
Samjhi ab lila tori
Basey morey man mein piya
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
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