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Picture the bower in the hush of an afternoon, the leaves gone still, the river-light wavering on the dark trunks of the trees. Here, where the only sound is the soft round of a kinkarī's song, Śyāma has come and seated Himself close beside His Svāminī. He has come, the tradition tells us, as a connoisseur leans toward a sweetness He cannot name: He tilts His head to examine the maidservant's singing, and even as He listens His eyes are stolen sideways, drawn helplessly to the face beside Him. And what He sees there overturns Him.

For Her face in this hour is nirmala, spotless. Begin there. Not spotless only as fair skin is spotless, but spotless of every inner shadow that can fall across a beloved's countenance. There is no stain of distress upon it now, no cloud of useless pride, no scratch of worry. Whatever ache the long hours pressed into Her, whatever sulk or hesitation the heart of a young woman in love must carry, all of it has lifted away in His nearness, the way mist lifts from a pond when the sun lays its first hand on the water. What remains is the pure, unmixed glow of delight. O Rādhe, this is the face Śyāma drinks: a face washed clean by His own arrival, lit only with the gladness of having Him near.

She smiles softly at Her lover. She bends toward Him and lets fall those low, intimate words that pass between two who belong wholly to each other, words no one else may hear, words that are themselves a kind of caress. And as Her lips part on that smile, the teeth within shine out, mauktika: pearl-row, a sudden clean brightness breaking from the dark sweetness of Her mouth. Govinda Dāsa sings it for us, that the rays of Her teeth flash out like so many strokes of lightning, and that when She smiles She sends up waves of nectar. See, then, how the whole world-enchanting boat of Kṛṣṇa, He who enchants all the worlds, is set afloat upon this: His very being rocks and drifts in all directions on the flood of luster pouring from Her smile, carried this way and that, no longer His own. He who steadies all hearts cannot keep His own steady before the lamp of Her teeth.

And the lips themselves, O Rādhe, manojña-nava-pallava: tender as the newest sprout uncurling on a branch in spring, soft and red and freshly opened, and yet glittering with maṇi-cchaṭā, the deep cut radiance of a gem, as though a ruby had learned to be tender. Look how they hold two beauties at once, the soft of the young leaf and the fire of the jewel; and how, framing the pearls of Her teeth, they reveal and complete the splendor of Her face. The lip uncovers the teeth, the teeth glorify the lip, and the whole mouth becomes a single shining thing the heart cannot look away from.

Now follow the swaying of the earrings. Calan-makara-kuṇḍalam: the fish-shaped ornaments at Her ears tremble and dangle, alive with motion, because She is alive with speech and laughter. Every time She laughs a little, every time She turns Her head to murmur to Him, the Makara-earrings swing along the curve of Her cheeks, glittering, keeping a small dancing time to Her words, enhancing the beauty of Her face. They are not still ornaments on a still face; they move because joy is moving through Her, and their motion is the visible music of Her gladness. O wind that stirs the grove, you do not stir these; it is Her own delight that sets them dancing.

And then the eyes. Cakita-cāru-netrāñcalam: the corners of Her restless, startled, lovely eyes. With those sidelong tips of Her glance She licks the beauty of His face, drinking Him in from the very edge of Her sight even while She speaks of other things. And then, suddenly, a flicker of alarm: what if a sakhī, what if anyone at all, should round the trees just now and come upon this nearness? At that thought Her gaze darts, startled, anxious, scanning the green edges of the bower, and turns back to Him. O Rādhe, how unbearably beautiful is that startled look, that quick widening and turning of the eyes, half terror and half tenderness, the alarm of a love that must guard itself and cannot bear to be interrupted.

The tradition treasures this very flutter, and Govinda Dāsa sets it to song. This fortunate girl, he sings, is a jewel crown, an ocean of elegance, and Her lips are colored like the red of Bāndhulī-flowers. "I went and saw that Rāi," sighs Mādhava through Govinda Dāsa's song; "She saw Me and became restless with delusion, and in a startled way She walked away. After a few steps She stopped, and turning, She showered Me with the arrows of Her crooked glances, arrows like Cupid's own, and so She stole everything from Me: My mind, My fame, My attributes, My virtues, My very intelligence. After taking all this, the Girl went away." And Govinda Dāsa says: now Mādhava is left doing nothing but japa on the mālā of Her qualities, telling them over and over like a rosary.

So the two sweetnesses feed one another without end. The spotless sweetness of Śrīmatī's face causes the ocean of Śyāmasundara's beauty to swell and rise; and the sweetness of Śyāma in turn raises fresh waves upon the ocean of Śrī Rādhā's beauty. Each is the moon to the other's tide. And in the midst of this rising and falling stands the maidservant, the kiṅkarī, relishing it all only through Śyāma's own enchanted gaze, tasting the Pair through Him. Yet though she drinks and drinks, her eyes are Cakora-birds that can never be filled: the nectar oozing from the moon of Śrī Rādhā's face never runs dry, and her thirst for it never ends.

This is why Śrīpāda does not say "I see" but smarāmi, "I remember." He stands at a distance the longing itself creates, and out of that ache he prays: I will never be so fortunate that merciful Śrīmatī will once grant me Her indescribable darśana. He does not seize the vision; he calls it to mind, holds it trembling before the inner eye, and begs. O Rādhike, I remember Your spotless face: the pearl-teeth perking into light, the sprout-soft jewel-lips, the swaying Makara-earrings, the startled darling corners of Your eyes. Smarāmi tava rādhike vadana-maṇḍalaṁ nirmalam.