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Begin with the dark. Picture the new-moon night over Vraja, the blackest night of the whole month, when the path between Yāvaṭa and the trysting grove drowns in shadow and not one star will tell a traveller where to set her foot. Into this darkness a single form moves, swift and sure and trembling with love. It is Śrī Rādhā, the kuñjābhisārikā, slipping out toward the appointed bower where Śyāma waits. She does not walk. She runs. From Her every limb the waves of constant passion gush out, ceaseless, toward the One who is the very life of Her life.

And close behind Her, near as Her own shadow, runs the kiṅkarī, the little maidservant who cannot bear to be a step away. This whole verse is the handmaid's breath as she follows. It is made of nothing but names, nothing but addresses, and with each one she reaches out and almost touches her Svāminī, and in the touching she is touched in return by the Śyāma-rasa, the Kṛṣṇa-mellows, that stream off Rādhā's running form. So the maidservant serves in two ways at once: with her hands and feet she keeps Her safe upon the road, paricaryā, the practical service; and with her mouth and heart she sings Her, names Her, hears Her, prasaṅga. How expert these maidservants are. No one in all the worlds can serve the way they serve.

Hear her first cry. He unmīlan nava-malli-dāma vilasad-dhammilla-bhāre: O You whose heavy braid is crowned with a garland of freshly opened jasmines. Do not run so fast, my Svāminī, the handmaid pleads, for if You rush the braid will come loose and the jasmines will scatter to the path. And then she lets slip the truth that is the very reason she fears it. Just as the little bees have already grown drunk on the scent of these jasmines, so Madhusūdana too will reel and grow ecstatic when that fragrance reaches Him. For Your form is itself the jasmine-flower, O Rādhe, and Your love is the perfume rising from it, and it is that perfume which draws the rasika bumblebee Śyāma helplessly toward You. Do not spoil so wondrous an adornment by running. Let it stay perfect; let it stay sweet.

Then she calls again, lower, toward the soft music at Rādhā's waist. He bṛhac-chroṇī-maṇḍala mekhalā-kalarave: O You whose jewelled sash of bells murmurs softly upon Your broad and lovely hips. It is hard for You to move so swiftly, my own; slow Your steps. And here the maidservant says the thing that betrays where her whole heart lives. Do not fear that Śyāma will lose interest if You come a little late. He will only grow more eager, and that swelling eagerness will make the meeting sweeter still. Even the faint jingling of these waistbells, carried to Him through the dark from far off, will fall on His love-parched ears like a stream of nectar; He will be soothed, He will be made glad, by the mere rumour of Your coming. He is not going to abandon the trysting place if You are slow. So do not break Your neck upon the road for His sake. Walk safe. Walk slow.

Look how she cares more for Rādhā's tender arrival than for Śyāma's anxious waiting. These maidservants love Rādhā more than they love Kṛṣṇa Himself. This is the rare and tender mood the tradition names rādhā-snehādhikā, the bhāvollāsa-rati, where the whole self belongs to Her. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi, in the Sakhī-prakaraṇa, that those girlfriends who think "We belong to Rādhā," who lean always toward Her, more affectionate to Her than to Kṛṣṇa, are the sakhī snehādhikā: tadīyatābhimāninyo yāḥ snehaṁ sarvadāśritāḥ, sakhyām alpādhikaṁ kṛṣṇāt sakhī snehādhikās tu tāḥ. There is a sweetness here that has no bottom. The same Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi tells how once Vṛndā was sent through a storming night to bring Rādhā to a bower of Govardhana, and a manjarī stopped her on the way and cried: turn back, sakhi, leave off Your clever errands; go to Vrajendranandana and tell Him it pours with rain and the poisonous snakes are out crawling. How can He send for Her in such horror? He defeated Kāliya; He fears no serpent. Let Him come here Himself, rather than our delicate Rādhā having to go to Him.

Now the maidservant looks down at the running feet. He śiñjat-su-mañjīriṇi: O sweetly-anklets, O You whose anklebells ring. Your lotus-feet are so tender, and the path is strewn with sharp little pebbles; if You wound them by running You will only feel the pain and arrive too late, and then You will not be able to gladden Your beloved at all. So, as Jayadeva begs in the Gīta-Govinda, rādhe pathi muñca sambhramam abhisāre cāraya caraṇāmburuhaṁ dhīraṁ sukumāre: do not rush on the path, O Rādhe; carry Your tender lotus-feet gently, steadily, for they are softer than any flower.

And then she lifts her eyes to the arms. He keyūra-aṅgada-kaṅkaṇāvali lasad-dor-valli-dīpti-cchaṭe: O You whose vine-like arms blaze with the luster of armlets and upper-armlets and rows of bangles. With the very light of these ornaments You can scatter the darkness of despair in Your lover's heart; so move slowly, let the radiance arrive whole. And last, softly, to the breast. He hema-ambhoruha-kuṭmala-stani: O You whose breasts are the buds of golden lotuses. These are the finest of all the things You carry to the worship of Kṛṣṇa, the most precious of Your offerings to Him; walk carefully, do not let the hurrying feet strike a tree-root and bring You down.

And so the little handmaid runs on after her mistress through the black night, calling, calling, each name a touch, each warning a caress, never once for her own sake, always to keep Rādhā whole and sweet and safe for the meeting. Until at the end the cry turns at last toward her own famished eyes, and the longing she has held back the whole way comes out plain: rādhe dṛśā kadā pīyase. O Rādhe, when, when, with the two cups of these eyes of mine, will I drink down the nectar of Your beauty? When will my thirst for the sight of You be quenched? The Rādhāvallabha singers name this very verse Abhilāṣā, pure Longing, and Swami Śrī Hitdas ji's Hindi voicing carries the identical ache: O Śrī Rādhe, when shall I drink this rūpa-rasa of Yours with my own eyes?

For this is what the verse leaves trembling in us. The whole of it is one prayer for darśana, for the sight of Her, and the maidservant's service is itself her thirst made into hands. She wants nothing for herself but this: to be near enough to drink Her with her eyes, to be the shadow that follows, to serve Her safely down the road to Śyāma and ask no reward but the seeing. O wind that carries the jasmine-scent ahead of Her, O darkness that hides Her, O path that bears Her tender feet, keep her, guard her, let her arrive. And O these poor eyes of mine, the sādhaka's eyes, when shall they too be granted to follow even a little way behind, and to drink?