A blessed fleeting dream
Of the bees among the mangoes
Beside his native stream;
So flash those sudden yearnings,
That sense of a dearer thing,
The love and lack of Radha
Upon his soul in Spring.

Then she, the maid of Radha, spake again;
And pointing far away between the leaves
Guided her lovely Mistress where to look,
And note how Krishna wantoned in the wood
Now with this one, now that; his heart, her prize,
Panting with foolish passions, and his eyes
Beaming with too much love for those fair girls--
Fair, but not so as Radha; and she sang:

(_What follows is to the Music_ RAMAGIRI _and the Mode_ YATI.)

See, Lady! how thy Krishna passes these idle hours
Decked forth in fold of woven gold, and crowned with forest-flowers;
And scented with the sandal, and gay with gems of price--
Rubies to mate his laughing lips, and diamonds like his, eyes;--
In the company of damsels,[1] who dance and sing and play,
Lies Krishna, laughing, toying, dreaming his Spring away.

[Footnote 1: It will be observed that the "Gopis" here personify the
five senses. Lassen says, "_Manifestum est puellis istis nil aliud
significar quam res sensiles_."]

One, with star-blossomed champak wreathed, wooes him to rest his head
On the dark pillow of her breast so tenderly outspread;
And o'er his brow with, roses blown she fans a fragrance rare,
That falls on the enchanted sense like rain in thirsty air,
While the company of damsels wave many an odorous spray,
And Krishna, laughing, toying, sighs the soft Spring away.

Another, gazing in his face, sits wistfully apart,
Searching it with those looks of love that leap from heart to heart;
Her eyes--afire with shy desire, veiled by their lashes black--
Speak so that Krishna cannot choose but send the message back,
In the company of damsels whose bright eyes in a ring
Shine round him with soft meanings in the merry light of Spring.

The third one of that dazzling band of dwellers in the wood--
Body and bosom panting with the pulse of youthful blood--
Leans over him, as in his ear a lightsome thing to speak,
And then with leaf-soft lip imprints a kiss below his cheek;
A kiss that thrills, and Krishna turns at the silken touch
To give it back--ah, Radha! forgetting thee too much.

And one with arch smile beckons him away f