Jaya
don’t wake up Hara’s wife,
I beg you.
Because she has to leave
she stayed up the whole night crying.
All night she was in pain;
only now she sleeps.
Alas, that moon-face is grey with grief.
When she wakes
Uma will abandon us for Kailasa city,
leaving Himalaya dark.
Kara has come to take her away;
that’s why I ask you to delay.
For, as long as she sleeps
I can still gaze on her moon-face.
Translated from the Bangla by Rachel Fell McDermott