When God made me, why did he then conspire
To make her beauty? If both had to be,
Why did he then make spring to wake desire?
Surely he made the spring to break
Men’s hearts: but why then did he make
The mango blossom on the mango-tree?

***

A hundred times I learnt from my philosophy
To think no more of love, this vanity,
This dream, this source of all regret,
This emptiness.
But no philosophy can make my heart forget
Her loveliness.

***

If he had seen this dainty creature,
Golden as saffron in every feature,
How could a high creator bear
To part with anything so fair?
Suppose he shut his eyes? Oh, no:
How could he then have made her so?
–Which proves the universe was not created:
Buddhist philosophy is vindicated.

***

Though she’s the girl, I am the one who’s shy;
And though she walks with heavy hips, it’s I
Who cannot mpve for heaviness; and she
Who is the woman: but the coward, me.
She is the one with high and swelling breast,
But I the one with weariness oppressed.
Clearly in her the causal factors lie,
But the effects in me I wonder why!