Ode to Dadi!

This is an Ode written to 'Dadi', a character in a popular television show and is a tribute to Shelley. An 'Ode to Skylark' is one of my favourite poems and Shelley's art is undeniably supreme here.

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Dadi thou never wert -
That from Vrindavan or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of premeditated art.

Higher still and higher
Your shrill voice springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The Red deep thou facest,
And anger still dost soar, and soaring ever angst.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou 'Tilak' float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose trace is just begun.

The pale 'Odhani' even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy footstep tight -

Keen as are the arrows
Your words in domestic sphere
Whose intense meaning shatters
One or two souls so clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
Dadi brings out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a strain of melody: -

Dadi's treasure is hidden
In the sachet of cloth,
Showing signs unbidden,
Of secret power Dadi caught
Anyone's apathy, hopes or fears Dadi heeded not:

Dadi is a high-born Queeny,
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
'Poti' in secret hour
With all sweets and candies, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Dadi spoils the 'Poti', hiding from Babuji's view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Dadi hides her sweets from those heavy-wingéd thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers -
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh - Dadi's glance not surpass.

Teach us, Sprite O' Dadi,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of Bahuriaa' so burstin'
That panted forth a flood of expression so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Eyes carefully rollin' to watch one n all
Dadi sits to vaunt -
In front of a temple with some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What sights, or sounds, or tang?
What shapes of brows or brain?
What hate of thine own kind? what abundance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Always comes near thee:
Thou lovest, O' Dadi and also know love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of [death] must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy [notes] flow in such a [crystal] stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
We would be so much like your Bahuriaa' dear.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in Stores are found,
Dadi Thy skill to shout were, thou scorner always proud!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From your lips always flow,
The world should listen then, as I am writing now.