Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/93

LOVR IN HINDU LITERATURE. • 79 The machinery and technique here are theological and mediaeval, the images called up and sentiments expressed are, however, thoroughly human. Here is a picture of intense love between man and woman, — an idea of the deepest grief— exhibited in bold relief against a sedate and almost ascetic treatment of Roman Catholic im- ageries. The sensuous and the spiritual have mingled — but the sensuous is not eclipsed. As Stopford Brooke remarks : ' ' No one who has loved and lost, and waits here below or there above, but must have cherished its main thought and felt its main emotion."

The depth of sensuous longing and ecstasy is more felt than described in some of the love-songs of Tagore's Gardener. Here is an instance :

" When I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent.

It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed.

When I sit on my balcony and listen for his foot- steps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sound on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep.

It is my own heart that beats wildly— I do not know how to quiet it.

When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars.

It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it."

In these lines we see the birds and trees, the