The Princess and the Shepherd

Sometimes, our own views of princesses and shepherds gets so all encompassing that we lose sight of what is God’s will. This is a poem that shows just that.

And she enters the palace, silver anklets tinkling softly,
In the dead of the night, to her room she tiptoes,
Her mother waits in the dark, heart beating wildly,
‘Oh you little jewel, my heart bleeds for you thus,
Away you go into the dark dangerous night,
On horseback, galloping into the moonlight,
Who is it that draws you so, out of your chamber,
And into the night, who is he who makes you wander?
A prince so fine, or a man with nobility divine?’

‘Mother, his company is what my heart longs,
But neither prince nor noble he may be,
The coarse Harijan class is to what he belongs,
And that makes him not a person worse,
Or shrewder less, or his thoughts less lofty,
He has strength that makes the wrestlers shiver,
Wit and subtlety to make the vazirs quiver
He is a complete man, and mine he will be.

Oh mother! Why do you weep thus!
Is it his lineage of birth, or the bulge of his purse,
That makes him fit for a princess? Is it not his soul
And his completeness, that makes him a man whole?’
‘Oh naïve little one, what do you know, of royalty,
Of poetry, nobility, and a king’s famed ancestry,
That you seek to blemish it, with a mere shepherd
Fit only to clean the stables at our palace!’

And her bangles she breaks, weeps and curses
Her hot tears fill the night, and thus it passes.

It is morning. The jungle awakens to glory
The shepherd stands one legged, flute in hand,
And as melody divine fills the heavens, you can see
How bird, animal, and all the creatures of the land,
Surround him in devotion, as do the villagers slowly,
And as the queen spends a sleepless night, may be
The princess still thinks of him, as now he is only memory,
But the shepherd Krishna revels outside, and all is Godly.