The scholars fight to-day about dates that play hide-and-seek. I do not break my heart dreaming over flown and vanished ages: but alas and alas again, that those Malwa girls have followed them! To what heaven, I wonder, have they carried in their flower-baskets those days that tingled to the lyrics of the king's poet? This morning, separation from those whom I was born too late to meet weighs on and saddens my heart. Yet April carries the same flowers with which they decked their hair, and the same south breeze fluttered their veils as whispers over modern roses. And, to tell the truth, joys are not lacking to this spring, though Kalidas sing no more; and I know, if he can watch me from the Poets' Paradise, he has reasons to be envious. 10 Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: leave it in the dark. What if her beauty be of the figure and her smile merely of the face? Let me take without question the simple meaning of her glances and be happy. I care not if it be a web of delusion that her arms wind about me, for the web itself is rich and rare, and the deceit can be smiled at and forgotten. Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: be content if the music is true, though the words are not to be believed; enjoy the grace that dances like a lily on the rippling, deceiving surface, whatever may lie beneath. 11 Neither mother nor daughter are you, nor bride, Urvashi.[1] Woman you are, to ravish the soul of Paradise. [Footnote 1: The dancing girl of Paradise who rose from the sea.] When weary-footed evening comes down to the folds whither the cattle have returned, you never trim the house lamps nor walk to the bridal bed with a tremulous heart and a wavering smile on your lips, glad that the dark hours are so secret. Like the dawn you are without veil, Urvashi, and without shame. Who can imagine that aching overflow of splendour which created you! You rose from the churned ocean on the first day of the first spring, with the cup of life in your right hand and poison in your left. The monster sea, lulled like an enchanted snake, laid down its thousand hoods at your feet. Your unblemished radiance rose from the foam, white and naked as a jasmine. Were you ever small, timid or in bud, Urvashi, O Youth everlasting? Did you sleep, cradled in the deep blue night where the strange light of gems plays over coral, shells and moving creatures of dreamlike form, till day revealed your awful fulness of bloom? Adored are you of all men in all ages, Urvashi, O endless wonder! The world throbs with youthful pain at the glance of your eyes, the ascetic lays the fruit of his austerities at your feet, the songs of poets hum and swarm round the perfume of your presence. Your feet, as in careless joy they flit on, wound even the heart of the hollow wind with the tinkle of golden bells.