ACT THE FIFTH
THE STORM
[The love-lorn Chārudatta appears, seated.]
Chārudatta. [Looks up.]
AN untimely storm[1] is gathering. For see!
The peacocks gaze and lift their fans on high;
The swans forget their purpose to depart;
The untimely storm afflicts the blackened sky,
And the wistful lover's heart. 1
And again:
The wet bull's belly wears no deeper dye;
In flashing lightning's golden mantle clad,
While cranes, his buglers, make the heaven glad,
The cloud, a second Vishnu,[2] mounts the sky. 2
And yet again:
As dark as Vishnu's form, with circling cranes
To trumpet him, instead of bugle strains,
And garmented in lightning's silken robe,
Approaches now the harbinger of rains. 3
When lightning's lamp is lit, the silver river
Impetuous falls from out the cloudy womb;
Like severed lace from heaven-cloaking gloom,
It gleams an instant, then is gone forever. 4
Like shoaling fishes, or like dolphins shy,
Or like to swans, toward heaven's vault that fly,
Like paired flamingos, male and mate together,
