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POEMS OF SURDAS translated by Professor John Stratton Hawley

Black storm clouds have risen in the sky
and herons in an eerie row.
Please, Kanh, look: a rainbow-such beauty!-
bearer of all colors,
bow for the arrows of the gods.

Lightning flashes forth and strikes here and there
like an eager, restless woman
Whose husband, the rogue, is at every other house:
now she has the chance to range about herself,
ignited by the God of Love.

Peacocks and cuckoos cry out in the woods
and trees dispatch their messenger girls-the vines-
To find their loves, but it seems love's longing
has so impassioned the vines and angered them
that they break their vows, what they promised to do,
And mate with every tree they meet
in a network of darkened groves.

Kama, the expert, arvakens to the wish
of Sur's dark Syam: he lifts his own hand
to decorate a bower as a home.