Kindle Notes & Highlights
I am he who was the first born in the heart of the Creator. I bind in bonds of pain and bliss the lives of men and women!
the King of the Seasons. Death and decrepitude would wear the world to the bone but that I follow them and constantly attack them.
My hands are strong to bend the bow, but I have never learnt Cupid's archery, the play of eyes.
The eye does its work untaught, and he knows how well, who is struck in the heart.
An amused smile flickered round the corners of his mouth, perhaps at the sight of my boyish countenance. Then for the first time in my life I felt myself a woman, and knew that a man was before me.
Now teach me thy lessons; give me the power of the weak and the weapon of the unarmed hand.
The flower of my desire shall never drop into the dust before it has ripened to fruit.
For a single day make me superbly beautiful, even as beautiful as was the sudden blooming of love in my heart. Give me but one brief day of perfect beauty, and I will answer for the days that follow.
as the golden mist of dawn melts from off the snowy peak of the eastern hill.
what can you desire, you who are the desire of the whole world!
the easternmost hill on whose summit the morning sun first prints his fiery foot
I have culled from the mouths of the multitude that imperishable name and hidden it with care in my maiden heart.
Has that name only a deceitful glitter? Say so, and I will not hesitate to break this casket of my heart and throw the false gem to the dust.
But you have dissolved my vow even as the moon dissolves the night's vow of obscurity.
What have you seen in me that makes you false to yourself? Whom do you seek in these dark eyes, in these milk-white arms, if you are ready to pay for her the price of your probity? Not my true self, I know. Surely this cannot be love, this is not man's highest homage to woman! Alas, that this frail disguise, the body, should make one blind to the light of the deathless spirit! Yes, now indeed, I know, Arjuna, the fame of your heroic manhood is false.
Woo not falsehood, offer not your great heart to an illusion.
I felt like a flower, which has but a few fleeting hours to listen to all the humming flatteries and whispered murmurs of the woodlands and then must lower its eyes from the Sky, bend its head and at a breath give itself up to the dust without a cry, thus ending the short story of a perfect moment that has neither past nor future.
A limitless life of glory can bloom and spend itself in a morning.
The moon had moved to the west, peering through the leaves to espy this wonder of divine art wrought in a fragile human frame.
I remembered what I used to be, and ran and ran like a deer afraid of her own shadow, through the forest path strewn with shephali flowers.
Alas, thou daughter of mortals! I stole from the divine Storehouse the fragrant wine of heaven, filled with it one earthly night to the brim, and placed it in thy hand to drink— yet still I hear this cry of anguish!
The barque of joy came in sight, but the waves would not let it touch the shore.
When with the advent of autumn the flowering season is over then comes the triumph of fruitage.
I watch how you weave that garland. Skill and grace, the twin brother and sister, are dancing playfully on your finger tips. I am watching and thinking.
them. Joy turns into pain when the door by which it should depart is shut against it.
the sound of prayer bells from the distant village temple steals upon the evening air across the silent trees!
I WOKE in the morning and found that my dreams had distilled a gem. I have no casket to inclose it, no king's crown whereon to fix it, no chain from which to hang it, and yet have not the heart to throw it away.
Are you quite certain that the enchanted deer you pursue must needs be caught? No, not yet. Like a dream the wild creature eludes you when it seems most nearly yours. Look how the wind is chased by the mad rain that discharges a thousand arrows after it. Yet it goes free and unconquered.
The dew that hangs on the tip of a Kinsuka petal has neither name nor destination. It offers no answer to any question. She whom you love is like that perfect bead of dew.
Can she be merely like a fragment of heaven dropped on the earth through the carelessness of a wanton god?
Let my heart feel you on all sides and live with you in the peaceful security of love.
Why this vain effort to catch and keep the tints of the clouds, the dance of the waves, the smell of the flowers?
it is Heaven's blessing that has made the flower's term of life short.
press it dry of honey, for fear your beggar's heart come back to it again and again with unsated desire, like a thirsty bee when summer blossoms lie dead in the dust.
and the soft, white glow of thy skin will be born again in a hundred fragrant jasmine flowers.
she is not beautiful. She has no such lovely eyes as mine, dark as death. She can pierce any target she will, but not our hero's heart.
They say that in valour she is a man, and a woman in tenderness.
Her needs? Why, what has she ever had, the unfortunate creature? Her very qualities are as prison walls, shutting her woman's heart in a bare cell.
She is like the spirit of a cheerless morning, sitting upon the stony mountain peak, all her light blotted out by dark clouds.
Woman's arms, though adorned with naught but unfettered strength, are beautiful!
Would it please your heroic soul if the playmate of the night aspired to be the helpmeet of the day, if the left arm learnt to share the burden of the proud right arm?
You seem to me like a goddess hidden within a golden image.
Beloved, my life is full.
