Verse 13

Glance

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Asking the earth, the doe, the creepers· Verses 10–13

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Earth, ah, what austerity have you done? You are shining, with the hair of your body standing up in the festival of the touch of Kesava's foot. Is it from his foot, or from the wide-strider's stepping, or from the embrace of his boar body? Friend, wife of the deer, has the Unfallen come here with his beloved, spreading a great ease for the eyes with his body? The scent of the herd-lord's jasmine garland blows here, reddened by the saffron of her breasts where she pressed against him. Trees, did Rama's younger brother come this way, his arm laid on his beloved's shoulder, a lotus in his hand, followed by swarms of bees blind with the tulasi's honey, and did he answer your bowing with loving looks?

Ask these creepers. Though they are only clasping the arms of the great tree, surely his fingernails have touched them: look, they are bristling.