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Here the speaker steals a glimpse of his Beloved in the forest and, as though in secret conspiracy with the reader, reports to us on what he sees. That the scene should not appear a static or jaded recounting of an age-old legend, the poet plunges us into the very moment of the act, almost as the speaker of one of Browning's monologues abruptly seizes our attention. We are compelled by the opening words to follow the line of the speaker's gaze and to participate in the dramatic event of the Beloved's passing.

As if hidden among the forest growth, our vision obstructed by leaves, we hear rather than see the Beloved approach. It is the ringing of ankle bells that alerts us to his passing. In this tiniest of details the poem receives an unmistakably Indian orientation. The bells are suggestive of traditional portraits of Krishna and their music mingles with the music of his flute. "When Krishna plays the flute in these poems," J.C.Ghosh explains,

it is more than a lover calling his beloved. It is the allcaptivating, all-compelling voice of the spirit calling for the renunciation of earthly attachment. Radha, the cowherds, the milkmaids, they all leave their homes and occupations in answer to that peremptory call.[81]

The speaker hears the music of the flute "vibrating through the horizons," borne farther than the note of ordinary music will carry and sustained, he implies, by a singular energy. Like him, we are drawn to its source. When our eyes finally light upon the figure of the Beloved, however, it is his receding form that we see. In a mere instant he has passed. With a touch of wistfulness, the speaker half expresses the thought that if his cowherd boy should ever look back then he would surely be seen-but, mirroring in his verse the natural broken rhythms of the mind, the poet leave the thought suspended, its flow interrupted by a caesura. He completes the line with the sighing "still He only goes forward."