Kalidasa: Shakuntala and Other Works: The Seasons

THE SEASONS

The Seasons is an unpretentious poem, describing in six short cantos the six seasons into which the Hindus divide the year. The title is perhaps a little misleading, as the description is not objective, but deals with the feelings awakened by each season in a pair of young lovers. Indeed, the poem might be called a Lover's Calendar. Kalidasa's authorship has been doubted, without very cogent argument. The question is not of much interest, as The Seasons would neither add greatly to his reputation nor subtract from it.

The whole poem contains one hundred and forty-four stanzas, or something less than six hundred lines of verse. There follow a few stanzas selected from each canto.

SUMMER

Pitiless heat from heaven pours
By day, but nights are cool;
Continual bathing gently lowers
The water in the pool;
The evening brings a charming peace:
For summer-time is here
When love that never knows surcease,
Is less imperious, dear.

Yet love can never fall asleep;
For he is waked to-day
By songs that all their sweetness keep
And lutes that softly play,
By fans with sandal-water wet
That bring us drowsy rest,
By strings of pearls that gently fret
Full many a lovely breast.

The sunbeams like the fires are hot
That on the altar wake; THE RAINS

The rain advances like a king
In awful majesty;
Hear, dearest, how his thunders ring
Like royal drums, and see
His lightning-banners wave; a cloud
For elephant he rides,
And finds his welcome from the crowd
Of lovers and of brides.

The clouds, a mighty army, march
With drumlike thundering
And stretch upon the rainbow's arch
The lightning's flashing string; AUTUMN

The autumn comes, a maiden fair
In slenderness and grace,
With nodding rice-stems in her hair
And lilies in her face.
In flowers of grasses she is clad;
And as she moves along,
Birds greet her with their cooing glad
Like bracelets' tinkling song.

A diadem adorns the night
Of multitudinous stars;
Her silken robe is white moonlight,
Set free from cloudy bars;
And on her face (the radiant moon)
Bewitching smiles are shown: WINTER

The bloom of tenderer flowers is past
And lilies droop forlorn,
For winter-time is come at last,
Rich with its ripened corn;
Yet for the wealth of blossoms lost
Some hardier flowers appear
That bid defiance to the frost
Of sterner days, my dear.

The vines, remembering summer, shiver
In frosty winds, and gain
A fuller life from mere endeavour
To live through all that pain;
Yet in the struggle and acquist
They turn as pale and wan
As lonely women who have missed
Known love, now lost and gone.

Then may these winter days show forth
To you each known delight,
Bring all that women count as worth
Pure happiness and bright;
While villages, with bustling cry,
Bring home the ripened corn,
And herons wheel through wintry sky,
Forget sad thoughts forlorn.

EARLY SPRING

Now, dearest, lend a heedful ear
And listen while I sing
Delights to every maiden dear,
The charms of early spring:
When earth is dotted with the heaps
Of corn, when heron-scream
Is rare but sweet, when passion leaps
And paints a livelier dream.

When all must cheerfully applaud
A blazing open fire;
Or if they needs must go abroad,
The sun is their desire;
When everybody hopes to find
The frosty chill allayed
By garments warm, a window-blind
Shut, and a sweet young maid.

Then may the days of early spring
For you be rich and full
With love's proud, soft philandering
And many a candy-pull,
With sweetest rice and sugar-cane:
And may you float above
The absent grieving and the pain
Of separated love.

SPRING

A stalwart soldier comes, the spring,
Who bears the bow of Love;
And on that bow, the lustrous string
Is made of bees, that move
With malice as they speed the shaft
Of blossoming mango-flower
At us, dear, who have never laughed
At love, nor scorned his power.

SPRING

Kalidasa: Shakuntala and Other Works: The Seasons

SUMMER

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