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The poem exposes a delicate emotional crisis. On the one hand the speaker longs to be claimed by his Beloved, but on the other hand the very thought of union causes him to dissolve in shyness. One cannot help but read into the speaker's bashful attitude a sensibility that inclines towards the feminine. The word "shyness" itself reinforces a portrait of feminine timidity and softness. As the Beloved weaves his mysterious game of hide-and-seek, the speaking voice becomes infused with nervousness. The tantalising sound of ankle bells, at times near and at other times far, feigning approach and retreat, creates a state of intense agitation in the speaker and forces this lyric cry into being. "Tis an instant's play./'Tis a fond Ambush ?" Emily Dickinson wrote of this play between man and God.[36] Sri Chinmoy's poem is at once a testament of love and an ardent appeal to God as the Beloved. Despair in this instance may be traced not to God's absence but to His tremendous nearness and its effect on the consciousness of the speaker. Our understanding of her complex emotional response is significantly enhanced by the abbreviated image "love-cord." The hands of a slave are bound as he is led away Here, the speaker proffers herself as a willing slave, impatient of the ties of love which will bind her fast. Slavery is neither commanded nor imposed. We see the speaker, in our imagination, standing with hands outstretched begging her reluctant captor to appear. It is the completeness of her surrender, more than anything else, that overwhelms us. The image of a bound slave, one whose freedom has been utterly curtailed, would repel most readers. It is not an image with which we can easily identify on the level of human love for it signifies an abrogation of personality. The task of translating it on the level of divine love is thus made correspondingly more difficult. And yet, as we struggle to grasp the point of view which would validate the image of "lovecord," something of the poet's conscious design becomes clear. The implicit analogue of the lover and the Beloved engaged in love's sophistries overlaps the experience of the reader and places what might otherwise be a remote mystical experience within reach of our understanding. Having secured a response, the poet now startles the reader into the realisation that divine love differs greatly in its nature from human love-it is a total self-offering, an unconditional gift of love.
Related Pages
- Poetry about Devotion - Selected poems by Sri CHinmoy
