Dance of the God

Dance! Dance!
Krishna, dance!
Dance as you danced
That only night
By the glittering stream:
Dance again
With the lifting step,
With the airy turn
Sudden as thought.
Mukunda, dance!

Holding your flute
As you held it once,
High to your lips
In your upheld hands,
Dance me that same
Dance again:
Swirl and sway
Through my cloudy trance
As for the milkmaids
Ringed about:
Leap and float
As you floated then,
When your flute notes
Drew each one
From the dream of desire,
From the dream of home,
With smooth voice
Found out each one
And drew her, anguished
For love and shame,
To join you in your
Luminous dream.

And always the black eyes
And blue skin
Urging, urging them
Ever on
To the lonely bank
Of the glittering stream,
To the flowery grove
In fierce moonlight,

Where, garlanded
With yellow and white
Of jasmines and marigolds
Tightly twined,
You danced your dance
In wild moonlight,
And the maids whirled round
To your anklets’ sound,
And with all you danced
Though you danced alone.

Till each knew at last
That her lover was
Not the sure lover
She left at home,
But the eight-years boy
With the piercing eyes,
With the night-black eyes
And day-blue skin
And the gleaming hair,
Which tossed and fell
As you danced your dance
With the milkmaids there:
And the god in you
Was the god in them
As they joined in love
By the glittering stream.

High to your lips
In your upheld hands
Holding your flute
As you held it once,
Dance as you danced
That only night
By the silent stream
In fierce moonlight,
With the lifting step,
With the airy turn:
Mukunda, dance
In my perilous dream,
Leap and float
As you floated then
While the milkmaids circled,
Clasping hands,
The dance of your naked
Innocence.

Dance! Dance!
Krishna, dance!