The Cloud Messenger - Part 03
Where the palaces are worthy of comparison to you in these various aspects:
you possess lightning, they have lovely women; you have a rainbow, they are
furnished with pictures; they have music provided by resounding drums, you
produce deep, gentle rumbling; you have water within, they have floors made
of gemstones; you are lofty, their rooftops touch the sky;
Where there are decorative lotuses in the hands of the young wives; fresh
jasmine woven into their hair; where the beauty of their faces is made whiter
by the pollen of lodhra flowers; in the thick locks on their crowns are fresh
kurubaka flowers; on their ears charming shirisa flowers; and on the parting
of their hair, nipa flowers that bloom on your arrival;
Where the trees, humming with intoxicated bees, are always in flower; the lily
pools, having rows of wild geese as waistbands, always produce lotuses;
where the tails of the tame peacocks, their necks upstretched to cry out, are
always resplendent; and where the evenings are perpetually moonlit and
pleasant, and darkness has been banished;
Where the tears of the lords of wealth are of utmost joy, having no other
cause, there being no suffering other than that caused by the flower-arrowed
god which is to be assuaged by union with the desired one; where there is
separation other than that arising from lovers’ quarrels; and where there is
indeed no age other than youth;
Where yakshas, having assembled on the upper terraces of the palace, made of
crystal, accompanied by their excellent womenfolk, enjoy ratiphalam wine
produced by a wish-fulfilling tree, while drums whose sound resembles your
deep thunder are beaten softly;
Where the girls fanned by breezes cooled by the waters of the Mandakini
river, the heat dispelled by the shade of the mandara trees that grow on its
banks, are urges by the gods to play with jewels hidden by burying them with
clenched fists in the golden sands and which are to be searched for;
Where the handfuls of powder flung by those red-lipped women bewildered
by shame when their lovers passionately pull away their linen garments, the
ties of which have been loosened and undone by restless hands, although they
reach the long-rayed jewel-lamps, they fail to extinguish them;
Where ragged clouds, like yourself, brought to the upper stories of the palaces
by the leader of the wind, having committed the misdeed of shedding
raindrops on a painting, cleverly imitating puffs of smoke, flee immediately
by way of the lattices as if filled with dread;
Where at night the moonstones, hanging from a web of threads and shedding
full drops of water under the influence of moonbeams bright since the removal
of your obstruction, dispel the physical langour after sexual enjoyment on the
part of the women who are freed from the embraces of their lovers’ arms;
Where lovers, with inexhaustible treasure their residences, together with the
kinnaras who sing with sweet voices of the glory of the lord of wealth,
[...] Read more
poem by Kalidasa
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