Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/91

LOVE IN HINDU LITERATURE. 77 distinguished from the conscious and artistic fusion of the sexual and the spiritual which we find in the love- Hterature produced. at " boiling-ppint." The motif there is purely human and secular impulse, but the presenta- tion is almost transcendental. Walter Pater notices this blending of the earthly and divine in Dante ;

" In him the material and spiritual are fused and blent ; if the spiritual attains the definite visibility of a crystal, what is material loses its earthiness and im- purity. And here again by force of instinct Rossetti is one with him." It may be said that every love-poem produced under these conditions would be a blending of the sexual and spiritual, Kalidasa, Vidyapati and Tagore are likewise one with Dante and Rossetti.

A few lines from Rossetti's Blessed Damozel would illustrate this fusion :

" The blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of heaven ; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even. Her hair that lay along her back Was yellow like ripe corn. Her seemed she scarce had been a day One of God's choristers ; The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers. It was the rampart of God's house That she was standing on.