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Begin with the gaze. Before a single ornament is fastened, before a single service is dreamed, the little maidservant stands before Her and simply looks, and the looking itself becomes prayer. She lets her eyes travel from the crown of Rādhā's face down to the small moons rising at Her toenails, and at every resting place along the way her heart breaks open into a fresh longing. This is no cold inventory of beauty. It is adoration moving slowly, the way a pilgrim moves through a temple, pausing at each shrine, unable to hurry past anything so sweet. And under every pause runs one steady undersong, the song this whole verse will resolve into at last: kadā rādhe mayārādhyase, O Rādhe, when will You be worshiped by me.

O moon-faced Rādhe, candrāsye. The maidservant says "moon," and then winces at her own poverty of speech, for she knows the moon is nothing here. The material moon cannot even partially be compared to that face. Līlāśuka knew it; toward the close of his Kṛṣṇa-Karṇāmṛta he tells Śyāma to His face that the poets, old and new, have made a habit of likening His countenance to the moon, but that borrowed moon is fit only to be the little lamp waved in ārati before Him, never a thing to which He could be compared. And if Śyāmasundara's own face shames the moon, what then of Rādhā's face, before which even Śyāma Himself stands astonished and undone? Yet after deep consideration the maidservant compares it to the moon anyway, and her reasoning is pure cunning love. "Let it be a moon, then. For Śyāma is the Cakora-bird who lives only to drink the nectar of moonlight, and when He drinks His fill of Your face He will swoon, and who will revive Him? I will. I alone will sing the glories of Your sweet form and sweeter qualities into His ear and bring Your beloved back to life. So You see, O Rādhe, even calling Your face the moon is a way of making myself necessary to Your joy, that Your enjoyment may never be hampered. Take me, then, into Your service."

O doe-eyed One, hariṇākṣi. The maidservant pictures the moonlit night when Rādhā slips out toward the appointed bower to meet Her dark Beloved. How Her eyes will dart then, frightened and quick, glancing left and right out of fear and shame lest some wakeful elder, some envious tongue, should see Her go. The startled doe in the forest cannot match the trembling beauty of those eyes; they defeat it. And the maidservant thinks: who will steady Her then? Who will whisper courage, smooth the fear from Her brow, and walk Her safely to Her tryst? "Give me this service, O Hariṇākṣi. Let me be the one who pacifies You and leads You to His arms."

O Devi. The word carries two glosses, and the maidservant cherishes both. It means dyotamānā, the effulgent one, the supremely beautiful; and it means too the playful girl who dwells in the very town that Kṛṣṇa Himself worships. Consider the wonder of it: Kṛṣṇa, who steals the hearts of all the beautiful daughters of Vraja, is Himself stolen by Her. Her supreme love is so vast that it makes Her the most beautiful of all, the one to whom even the all-attractive turns and bows. And the maidservant presses in: "When You have maddened Your Nāgara with the play of love, during and after, when You are flushed and breathless, who will fan You with cool breezes, who will bring You cool water and fragrant betel-leaves? I will. I am wanted for this. So please, O Devi, draw me to Your lotus feet."

O You of the lovely nose, sunase. So fine, the maidservant says, that the delicate sesame flower hangs its head in defeat. "Let me hang a single pearl upon a golden thread there, swinging from that flower-like nose. And who but I, Your lowly one, will set it there? For when that honey-like pearl glistens it will madden Madhusūdana, the dark bee drunk on sweetness, and draw Him straight to You. Just see how much You need me. Take me quickly, O sunase."

O ruddy-lipped, O sweetly-smiling One, śoṇādhare, susmite. "Your lips are already red by nature, redder than any dye, and yet I will smear them with lipstick still. And You will smile that smile and tease me: 'Foolish girl, my lips are naturally reddish, why do you keep painting them with this red liquid?' And I will answer: 'Because this red looks loveliest of all when it is pressed against a bluish spot, the dark cheek of Your Beloved.' And at my words You will laugh and be glad. You need me badly even for this small teasing service, O Susmite. Take me to Your feet."

O You whose arms are flowering creepers, cillakṣmī bhuja-vallī. How beautiful and lovely they are, soft and supple, so that their very flower-like fragrance sets the dark bee Madhusūdana trembling. "Your fallen maidservant will slip jewel-studded armlets upon them, and seeing You so adorned, Madhusūdana will fall at Your feet and pray for a festival of embraces, and You will shake those vine-arms and cry, 'No, no!' even as Your heart says yes. And when He pleads, 'My heart is broken, give Me some little pleasure,' how fitting will be the very name of those armlets, aṅgada, for she who wears them gives Her own body, aṅga, in charity to Her Beloved." Such are the games the maidservant longs to dress Her for.

O conch-throated One, kambu-rucira-grīve. Round and graceful as the conch, and marked with the three auspicious lines, is that throat. "Upon it I will hang the loveliest necklaces, and then Kṛṣṇa Himself will worship that neck in His own way, circling it with His arms." The maidservant's whole desire is to prepare Her, to set the stage, and then to step back into the shadows and watch the worship she has made possible.

O golden-mountain-breasted, slender-waisted, full-hipped One, girīndra-stani, bhajyan-madhya, bṛhan-nitambe. Now the maidservant's love turns to tenderness edged with worry. For in the whirling of the Rāsa, that thin waist must carry together the fullness above and the fullness below, and as Rādhā spins and sways, maddening Her lover with the artistry of Her dance, the little maidservant fears that the slender stem of Her waist might break under so sweet a burden. "So I am holding it for You. In this above all I am especially required, my hands steadying You as You dance. Take me quickly, O Rādhe, to Your lotus feet."

O plantain-thighed One, kadalī-khaṇḍoru, and O You whose toenails are a rising circlet of little moons, pronmīlan-nakha-candra-maṇḍale. Smooth and golden as the soft pith of the plantain are Your thighs, and at the sight of them Your Beloved faints away in ecstasy. "Then again I am needed, to sing a love-song that revives the swooning Madhusūdana and coaxes breath back into Him. And when You Yourself grow weary with the long dancing of the Rāsa, I will be there to make You fit and fresh again for the pastimes still to come. And as I kneel and massage Your tired feet, the splendour of those moon-bright nails will spill down and illumine the cave-dark hollow of this maidservant's heart." Here the whole verse gathers into its single cry, the cry its very title names, the longing-for-worship: O Rādhe, when will You bless this little one with all these services? Kadā rādhe mayārādhyase. When, oh when, will I be permitted to worship You?

Notice what has happened across this long unfolding. Not once has the maidservant asked for anything for herself. Every pearl she dreams of hanging, every armlet, every fan she would wave, every necklace, every love-song she would sing, is for Rādhā's pleasure and for the unbroken flow of Rādhā's love with Her Beloved. Her worship is not to possess the beauty she beholds but to serve it, to be necessary to it, to be the unseen hand that makes the divine play sweeter and keeps it from ever being hampered. This is the secret the verse hides in plain sight: that the highest reward she can imagine is simply to be allowed to serve, and the deepest ache she can feel is the fear that she might not be allowed at all. Kadā, she keeps saying. When. When. It is the whole song of the surrendered heart.