The trees with which her banks are lined

Show flowers and fruit of every kind:

The match in radiant sheen is she

Of King Kuvera's NalinÍ.373

My heart exults with pleasure new

The shelving band and ford to view,

Where gathering herds of thirsty deer

Disturb the wave that ran so clear.

Now look, those holy hermits mark

In skins of deer and coats of bark;

With twisted coils of matted hair,

The reverend men are bathing there,

And as they lift their arms on high

The Lord of Day they glorify:

These best of saints, my large-eyed spouse,

Are constant to their sacred vows.

The mountain dances while the trees

Bend their proud summits to the breeze,

And scatter many a flower and bud

From branches that o'erhang the flood.

There flows the stream like lucid pearl,

Round islets here the currents whirl,

And perfect saints from middle air

Are flocking to the waters there.

See, there lie flowers in many a heap

From boughs the whistling breezes sweep,

And others wafted by the gale

Down the swift current dance and sail.

Now see that pair of wild-fowl rise,

Exulting with their joyful cries:

Hark, darling, wafted from afar

How soft their pleasant voices are.

To gaze on ChitrakÚ?a's hill,

To look upon this lovely rill,

To bend mine eyes on thee, dear wife,

Is sweeter than my city life.

Come, bathe we in the pleasant rill

Whose dancing waves are never still,

Stirred by those beings pure from sin,

The sanctities who bathe therein:

Come, dearest, to the stream descend,

Approach her as a darling friend,

And dip thee in the silver flood

Which lotuses and lilies stud.

Let this fair hill AyodhyÁ seem,

Its silvan things her people deem,

And let these waters as they flow

Our own beloved SarjÚ show.

How blest, mine own dear love, am I;

Thou, fond and true, art ever nigh,

And duteous, faithful Lakshma? stays

Beside me, and my word obeys.

Here every day I bathe me thrice,

Fruit, honey, roots for food suffice,

And ne'er my thoughts with longing stray

To distant home or royal sway.

For who this charming brook can see

Where herds of roedeer wander free,

And on the flowery-wooded brink

Apes, elephants, and lions drink,

Thus eloquently spoke the pride

Of Raghu's children to his bride,

And wandered happy by her side

Where ChitrakÚ?a azure-dyed

Uprears his peaks on high.