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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
95

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCCDEFGHIDJKLDIMNBB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 583
Words 104
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20

Mirabai

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

All Mirabai poems | Mirabai Books

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