LXXXI. THE POET, IN PERIL OF DEATH, PRAYS TO THE MOTHER

O Mother, Hararamā,[244] when will you appear to me? Finished is this life's play, now let me have sight of you. Every day my body grows weaker, little by little the sight goes from my eyes. Now must you appear to me; if you delay, shall I have sight to know the face of Śyāmā?

I know you are present, Mother. Have you not cared for me? and clothed me? But what your form is like, this I do not know.

O Kālī, it is you who have put blinders on the eyes of your child.[245]

Anxious care has robbed my body of its beauty. Come, Mother, make yourself known to me.

If when my breath is spent and I am lying with my two eyes closed, if then you come, O wife of Śiva, tell me, what will your coming profit me? These eyes no longer will have power to see, and what my mind has thought my mind must keep.[246] No longer will these lips have power to call on you, my Mother.

My body is becoming as a stream whose muddy waters rush along in flood.

Will you not come to me, Mother, and wipe away the slime from me, your Rāma?

FOOTNOTES:

[244] She who pleases Hara.

[245] As with the oil-man's blindfolded ox (No. XXIX).

[246] Thought may still be there, but he will not have power to express it.

 

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DWIJADĀSA

We cannot find out anything about the writers of the next seven poems, which are all popular in the villages of West Bengal.

LXXXII. THE WORSHIPPER LAMENTS HIS NEGLECT OF KĀLĪ;

Never a day, never a day have you given me,[247] Tārā, Never a day when all day passes uttering Tārā, Tārā, Tārā, O Mother Durgā, the day goes its ill-omened way, spent in repaying my family's debts. Worldly desire goes not, your worship is not done, is not done. Not one day have I spent yet, crying only Śaṅkarī, Śarvāṇī, Śivā, Śavasanā;.[248]

This is the prayer of Dwijadāsa:[249] O Mother Tārā, fill my eyes with bliss! Wife of the Eternally Happy One, keep me in eternal happiness! Floating in sorrow's stream, I waste away.

FOOTNOTES:

[247] Not a day of his life has been spent wholly in her service and praise.

[248] These are all feminine forms of names of Śiva. Sarvāṇī is from śaru, missile, arrow, and Śavasanā is 'she who sits on a corpse.'

[249] The twice-born servant.

 

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