Kalidasa Poems

The slender young woman who is there would be the premier creation by the
Creator in the sphere of women, with fine teeth, lips like a ripe bimba fruit, a
slim waist, eyes like a startled gazelle’s, a deep navel, a gait slow on account
of the weight of her hips, and who is somewhat bowed down by her breasts.
...

Your naturally beautiful reflection will gain entry into the clear waters of the
Gambhira River, as into a clear mind. Therefore it is not fitting that you, out
of obstinancy, should render futile her glances which are the darting leaps of
little fish, as white as night-lotus flowers.
...

"On the departure of rainy season bechanced is autumn with a heart-pleasingly bloomed lotus as her face, betokening the heart-pleasing face of a new bride, and the autumnal fields of white grass with whitish flowers as her apparel, which betoken the whitish bridal apparel of a new bride, and the amorously clucking clucks of swans that have just returned from Lake Maanasa as rains have gone, are the jingling anklets of autumn, which betoken the delightful jingles of anklets of new bride, and now the rice is ready to ripe and thus the tenuous stalks of rice, which have their necks a little bent down, betoken the obeisant face of a new docile bride...

"Blanched is the earth with whitish grass and the nights with silvery and coolant moonbeams of the moon, and the rivers with white swans, lakes with white-lotuses, and that forest up to its fringes with whitish jasmine flowers and with somewhat whitish seven-leaved banana plants that are swagging under the weight of their flowers...
...

"Delightful are trees and fields with the outgrowth of new tender-leaves and crops, Lodhra trees are with their blossomy flowers, crops of rice are completely ripened, but now lotuses are on their surcease by far, for the dewdrops are falling... hence, this is the time of pre-winter that drew nigh...

"The busts of flirtatious women that are graced by bosomy bosoms are bedaubed and reddened with the redness of heart-stealing saffrony skincare, called Kashmir kumkum, on which embellished are the white pendants that are in shine with the whiteness of whitish dewdrops, white jasmines, and whitely moon...
...

Is eager gaze the sovereign of the skies
looked full on Káma with his thousand eyes:
E'en such a gaze as trembling suppliants bend,
When danger threatens, on a mighty friend.
...

Sad, solitary, helpless, faint, forlorn,
Woke Káma's darling from her swoon to mourn.
Too soon her gentle soul returned to know
The pangs of widowhood—that word of woe.
...

While impious Tárak in resistless might
Was troubling heaven and earth with wild affright,
To Brahmá's high abode, by Indra led,
The mournful deities for refuge fled.
...

Now gentle Umá bade a damsel bear
To Śiva, Soul of All, her maiden prayer:
'Wait the high sanction of Himálaya's will,
And ask his daughter from the royal hill.'
...

In light and glory dawned the expected day
Blest with a kindly star's auspicious ray,
When gaily gathered at Himálaya's call
His kinsmen to the solemn festival.
...

Far in the north Himálaya, lifting high
His towery summits till they cleave the sky,
Spans the wide land from east to western sea,
Lord of the hills, instinct with deity.
...