(S 1)
Then down the narrow path where their lives had met
410 He led and showed to her her future world,
Love’s refuge and corner of happy solitude.
(S 2)
At the path’s end through a green cleft in the trees
She saw a clustering line of hermit-roofs
And looked now first on her heart’s future home,
415 The thatch that covered the life of Satyavan.
(S 3)
Adorned with creepers and red climbing flowers
It seemed a sylvan beauty in her dreams
Slumbering with brown body and tumbled hair
In her chamber inviolate of emerald peace.
(S 4)
420 Around it stretched the forest’s anchorite mood
Lost in the depths of its own solitude.
(S 5)
Then moved by the deep joy she could not speak,
A little depth of it quivering in her words,
Her happy voice cried out to Satyavan:
425 “My heart will stay here on this forest verge
And close to this thatched roof while I am far:
Now of more wandering it has no need.
(S 6)
But I must haste back to my father’s house
Which soon will lose one loved accustomed tread
430 And listen in vain for a once cherished voice.
(S 7)
For soon I shall return nor ever again
Oneness must sever its recovered bliss
Or fate sunder our lives while life is ours.”
(S 8)
Once more she mounted on the carven car
435 And under the ardour of a fiery noon
Less bright than the splendour of her thoughts and dreams
She sped swift-reined, swift-hearted but still saw
In still lucidities of sight’s inner world
Through the cool-scented wood’s luxurious gloom
440 On shadowy paths between great rugged trunks
Pace towards a tranquil clearing Satyavan.
(S 9)
A nave of trees enshrined the hermit thatch,
The new deep covert of her felicity,
Preferred to heaven her soul’s temple and home.
(S 10)
445 This now remained with her, her heart’s constant scene.