Monday, April 30, 2012
The Beloved Comes Home
By Mirabai
(1498 - 1565?)
English version by V. K. Sethi
The one I longed for has come home;
The raging fire of separation is quenched.
Now I rejoice with Him, I sing in bliss.
The peacocks at the cloud's roar
Dance with unbound joy;
I rejoice in ecstasy
At the sight of my Beloved.
I am absorbed in His love;
My misery of wandering
In the world has ended.
The lily bursts into bloom
At the sight of the full moon;
Seeing Him, my heart blossoms in joy.
Peace permeates this body of mine;
His arrival has filled my home with bliss.
That very Lord has become my own
Who is ever the redeemer of His devotees.
Mira's heart, scorched by the blaze of separation,
Has become cool and refreshed;
The pain of duality has vanished.
(Mirabai was one of the early saint/poets of India. She was married by arrangement to a local prince, but was unhappy in the role of wife. After he died, she took to the roads and became a mendicant poet writing of her undying love for the Beloved. (Her love object was Krishna, whom she worshipped without reservation, using traditional love imagery to express her devotion.)
