Analysis of A Cowherding girl

Mirabai 1498 (Kudki, Pali district, Jodhpur State) – 1556 (Dwaraka)



The plums tasted
sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl-
but what manners! To chew into each! She was ungainly,
low-caste, ill mannered and dirty,
but the god took the
fruit she'd been sucking.
Why? She'd knew how to love.
She might not distinquish
splendor from filth
but she'd tasted the nectar of passion.
Might not know any Veda,
but a chariot swept her away-
now she frolics in heaven, esctatically bound
to her god.
The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira,
will save anyone
who can practice rapture like that-
I myself in a previous birth
was a cowherding girl
at Gokul.


Scheme ABCCDEFGHIDJKLDIMNBB
Poetic Form Etheree  (35%)
Tetractys  (25%)
Metre 0110 11011011 11101101111010 11110010 10110 11110 111111 1111 1011 1110010110 1111010 101001001 11101011 101 011101110 1110 11101011 11001001 1011 11
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 583
Words 104
Sentences 9
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 451
Words per stanza (avg) 102
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
95

Mirabai

Mirabai was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Lord Krishna. more…

All Mirabai poems | Mirabai Books

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