A DANCING GODDESS
Admiring the art of Indian Dance
The world-interpreting movements of the dance
Moulded idea and mood to a rhythmic sway
And posture...
(Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, p. 361)
As in a mystic and dynamic dance
A priestess of immaculate ecstasies
Inspired and ruled from Truth’s revealing vault
Moves in some prophet cavern of the gods...
(Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, p. 15)
LIKE an ecstatic coloured whirling gyre,
You’re dancing, a rampageous beauty-fire
In flames of rhythmic movements of delight
Spontaneously perfect, wisely bright
In symbol postures so fine, so dainty
Expressing deeper truths of life in plenty…
A goddess from the worlds of dancing light
Appearing strangely in our earthly night
Like a dream-vision fleeting and alluring
And with her graceful wafts our sorrows curing,
You’re moving… Magic steps and twists and turns
Led by the soul’s passion pure that burns
With love and tenderness and joy and might
Inspired to reveal to human sight
God’s mysteries of Love and Bliss eternal,
Conjure an image airy and supernal
Of an unearthly beauty so divine,
So charming for the mortal hearts to shrine
Forever in their deepest dear recesses:
Your otherworldly glory dazzling presses
The earthly eyes too glittering to bear,
But too enthralling to avoid to dare
Imbibing it with eyes in you immersed,
But still insatiable in their thirst…
So dainty fingers, so pliant feet,
Limbs so graceful, eyes so deep, so sweet, —
Swift like a lightning, fluid like a wave,
You flame, you billow, delicate and brave,
You glide, you crouch, you jump, you almost soar,
You bow, you rise, you worship, you adore…
Your gleaming limbs in the starred raiment’s whirl,
Your body’s fascinating thrilling twirl
In the sign-gestures of the human clay
Interpret the world-theurgies’ grand sway,
Express your soul’s insights, visions, moods
In poses moulding that on what it broods:
So shapely and refined, so slim and supple,
You’re able in the motions so subtle,
So precise to disclose your feelings deep:
In every pas, in every look and leap
You manifest in stirs and sweeps unbound
Your contacts with the charms sublime, profound:
You teach us, o you, sorceress from above,
Your magic art of beauty and of love!
Your art reveals the Art of God to us,
His world-creation in His cosmic Dance —
For in your dancing riot mad and pure,
A bacchante Him yearning to allure
Who is your one Beloved, supreme, divine,
Drunk with His winging and illuming wine,
You float and sway and step and whirl and wing
One with His Love’s and Wisdom’s surging swing:
By them you’re moved, of them your dancing sings
And to our hearts their rapture-nectar brings…
O goddess of the rhythms of moving beauty,
Be faithful to your sacred worship-duty!
Let never end your God-inspired dance —
In it the One Beloved can catch our glance!
Ritam
30.05.2017
Read more of my poems on my site:
www.savitri.su