( 12 ) An'ancient heathen poet, loving more God's creatures, and His women, and His flowers: Than we who boast of consecrated powers; Still lavishing his unexhausted store Of love's deep, simple wisdom, healing o'er The world's old sorrows, India's griefs and ours; That healing love he found in palace towers, On mountain, plain, and dark, sea-belted shore, In songs of holy Raghu's kingly line Or sweet Shakuntala in pious grove, In hearts that met where starry jasmines twine Or hearts that from long, lovelorn absence strove Together. Still his words of wisdorn shine: All's well with man, when man and woman love.
--------
Kalidasa's knowledge of nature is not only sympathetic, it is also minutely accurate. Not only are the snows and windy music of the Himalayas, the mighty current of the sacred Ganges, his possession; his too are smaller streams and trees and every littlest flower. It is delightful to imagine a meeting between Kalidasa and Darwin, They would have understood each other perfectly;.. for in each the same kind of imagination worked with the same wealth of observed fact. I have already hinted at the wonderful balance in Kalidasa's character, by virtue of which he found himself equally at home in a palace and in a wilderness. I know not with whom to com- pare him in this; even Shakespeare, for all his magical insight into natural beauty, is primarily a poet of the human heart. That can hardly be said of Kalidasa, nor can it be said that he is. primarily a poet of natural beauty. The two characters unite in him, it might almost be said, chemically. -Arthur W. Ryder.
