60. I see the garden grounds covered (smiling), with the flowers falling in showers from the shady trees; but I burn as the land under the burning sands, of the unshaded and burning desert. 61. The soft gurgling of waters, and the gentle breeze of lakes, full with blooming lotuses and lilies; and the sweet sounds of cranes and water fowls, are all rough and harsh to me. 62. Though decked with flowery wreaths and garlands, and swinging upon my cradle of flowers; yet methinks I am lying down upon a bed of thorns. 63. Sleeping on beds, formed of the soft leaves of lotuses and plantain-leaves; I find them dried under the heat of my body, and powdered to ashes by the pressure of my person. 64. Whatever fair, lovely, charming and sweet and pleasant things, I come to see and feel, I am filled with sorrow at their sight, and my eyes are suffused in tears. 65. My eyes steam with tears, from the heat of my inward bosom; and they trickle upon and fall down my eyelids, like dew drops on lotus leaves. 66. Swinging with my playmates, on the pendant boughs of plantain trees, in our pleasure gardens; I think of the burning grief in my heart, and burst out in tears, by covering my face with my hands (for fear of being detected in my love). 67. I look at our bowers of cooling plantain leaves, and strewn over with snows all over the ground; but fearing them as bushes of thorny brambles, I fly from them far away. 68. I see the blooming lotus of the lake, and the fond crane fondling with its stalk like arm, and then begin to contemn my youthful bloom. 69. I weep at seeing whatever is handsome, and keep quiet at what is moderate; I delight in whatsoever beseems to be ugly, and I am happy in my utter insensibility of every thing. 70. I have seen the fair flowers of spring, and the hoary-frost of winter; and thought them all to be but heaps of the ashes of lovelorn dames, burnt down by the flame of love, and scattered by the relentless winds on all sides. 71. I have made me beds of the blue leaves of lotuses and other plants, and covered me with chaplets of snow white flowers; but found them to turn pale and dry by their contact with my body. So pity me, that my youthful days have all gone in vain. CHAPTER LXV. LIFE AND CONDUCT OF THE ETHERIAL NYMPH. Argument:—How nymph has come to approach before Vasishtha, her statement of facts of her life. After the lapse of a long time, I found my passions subsiding, and I grew as callous to my susceptibilites, as the tender greens become juiceless and dry after the autumn is over. 2. Seeing my husband grown old, and shorn of all his susceptivity and vivaciousness; and sitting quietly in his steadfast devotion with an unwavering mind, I thought my life to be useless to me. 3. And methought that early widowhood, and even premature death, or rather a lingering disease or lasting misery, are preferable to a female’s living without a loving husband.