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Begin with where his eyes go, and to whom he speaks. Not upward to God. Not even to Rādhā or to Kṛṣṇa. He turns to a river. To trees and creepers. To parrots, to deer, to peacocks. To everyone else these are the scenery, the green and moving background against which the great ones live. To him they are the most fortunate beings in all the worlds, because they live near the love he aches for. He bows to them. He has stopped reaching for the love by force. He stands among its neighbors and begs them to speak for him.

First he turns to the river. O Kālindī, he cries, O Yamunā, O Goddess Kṛṣṇā: in you my jewel has played. His nidhiḥ, his one treasure, jewel-like Rādhikā, has sported in your nectarean waters with Her Śyāma. Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, whom the tradition holds as the singer of this poem, lingers over that play in his Vṛndāvana Mahimāmṛta, that sixteenth flood, verse seventy-two: sometimes They play in the Yamunā like a golden lotus enjoyed by a black bee, Rādhā the bloom and Kṛṣṇa the bee drunk on her; sometimes They move like a pair of swans gliding through a lotus-forest in the river; sometimes They are a golden creeper twined about a dark Tamāla-tree on the bank, the new meeting of vine and trunk. O river, you have held all of this. So his reasoning runs tender and shrewd at once: you are the greatest recipient of the playful Pair's mercy; if you, O Yamunā, will only be kind to me, then surely my Īśvarī Rādhikā will be kind to me too.

Then his gaze lifts to the bank, to the wonderful divine trees and creepers leaning over the water. O taru, O latā, he says, you are forever blessed by the touch of my Īśvarī's hands, for when She gathers your flowers to deck Her beloved, Her fingers rest on you. If you are merciful to me, She will surely be merciful to me. And here too Prabodhānanda has already set the worship in words, in the fifth flood of that same work, verse twenty-one: forever I offer obeisance to Vṛndāvana's trees and vines, whose very radiance is the essence of transcendental rasa, who bestow upon the maidservants every blessing of life simply by being looked upon, touched, heard of, spoken of, or remembered. How glorious, then, are these shrubs and grasses and wish-yielding creepers of Vraja, when even the great Uddhava prayed to be reborn as one of them, a humble plant rooted in this dust. He knows this, and so he bows to the trees and vines and asks them for the fulfillment of his longing.

Now to the birds that live closest of all to the secret. O parrots, he says, you who dwell in Rādhā's rati-gṛha, Her solitary bowerhouse of love, you who know everything of Her amorous play: how fortunate you are. You witness the intimate pastimes that even Her own dearest girlfriends cannot see. At daybreak you serve the divine Couple, waking Them with delightful songs. And then you plunge the very sakhīs into an ocean of nectarean delight, retelling to them the intimate nocturnal play of Rādhikā and Mādhava that you alone overheard. No one can reach the limits of your good fortune. O parrots, fulfill my blessed aspiration.

And to the gentle creatures of the grove last of all. O deer, O peacocks, you too are fortunate beyond measure, for you always behold the pastimes of the divine Couple in Vṛndāvana. I lay my obeisances at your feet and I pray for your mercy: let me see, let me serve, Śrī Rādhikā and Mādhava. O wind, O trees, O sky, O birds and animals of Vraja, hear this and know it well: I am Rādhikā's maidservant. I have no other shelter than Her lotus feet. Again and again, bhūyo bhūyaḥ, by bowing and bowing he prays for their anukampā, their compassion, asking nothing for power, only for nearness; and the tradition lets the heart's whole wish out plainly at the end, in the old Bengali singing: when will this body fall in the groves of Vraja, remembering by your grace the confidential pastimes that take place here?