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Picture the kuñja at the edge of Vraja, where the leaves hang heavy and still, and the prince of the cowherds waits within the bower with His eyes turned toward the path. And picture, upon that path, a girl on the very threshold of her youth, eager and afraid in one breath, half drawn forward and half holding back, a maidservant's hand in hers. This is the scene the tradition sets before us: Rādhikā coming toward the grove where Her beloved waits. And into this scene the song lifts its cry of praise, "kiśora-saundarya", the beauty of girlhood, set to the gentle Vasantatilakā measure, springtime's own meter for springtime's own bloom: O Śrī Rādhike, glory to the dawn of Your adolescence.

See how new She is to Her own loveliness. The beauty rising at Her breast has only just appeared, navodgama, freshly coming up, cāru-vṛtta, beautiful and round, two soft buds not yet unfolded, mukula-dvaya, tender as the closed lotuses that wait for the first warmth before they open. They are lobhanīyam: desirable, the very thing the eye and the heart long to gaze upon. And the line of Her hips is filling out day by day, śroṇi upacīyamānam, growing fuller. But hear what makes them full. They are widened by rasa-guṇa, by the tasty, rasika qualities of love that live in Her, so that the outward ripening is only the surface-glow of an inward ripening. Her body grows lovely because love is growing in Her. The Rādhāvallabha singers in their Hindi rendering catch the same secret from the worshiper's side: this kaiśora swells and grows fuller through the guṇas of nitya-sevana, the perpetual loving service of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, rasa-svarūpa, He whose very form is rasa. The fuller She grows in beauty, the fuller She grows in seva. It is one ripening.

And She is afraid. The tradition lets us hear Her small, frightened voice. "Sakhi, do not take Me to that kuñja. I am only a young girl. I am not ready yet to bring a man any joy. I have not the years for it, nor the mood, nor the courage." How tender this fear is, how chaste. She does not run toward the grove boasting of Her beauty; She shrinks from it, unsure of the very loveliness that the three worlds would die to behold. The freshness the song praises is precisely this, and Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes its very signs for us in the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi, that in navya-yauvana, in fresh youth: "darodbhinna-stanaṁ kiñcic calākṣaṁ manthara-smitam, manāg abhisphurad-bhāvaṁ navyaṁ yauvanam ucyate", the breasts are only slightly arisen, the eyes are restless, the smile comes slow and shy, and barely a glimpse of the inner moods has yet broken into view. This is no brazen bloom of one who knows her power; it is the trembling first morning of a girl who does not yet know what she carries.

So the maidservant becomes the singer of this praise, and her praise is also her coaxing. She gathers Śrīmatī close and says: O Rādhe, do not be afraid. Look at this fresh youth of Yours. It does not merely please; it conquers. Those newly arisen buds at Your breast are the very thing Śyāmasundara longs for, lobhanīya to Him above all things; the deepening sweep of Your hips is made fuller by the tasty qualities of love that live in You, and those qualities will crush the mind of rasamaya Kṛṣṇa, He who is full of every spiritual flavour. And the whole bloom of Your kaiśora falls upon the heart of Mohana, the great enchanter, and steals it clean away, mohana-citta-cora. He who enchants the whole moving and unmoving world stands enchanted before You; the thief of every heart is robbed by the springtime of one cowherd girl.

The sakhī knows the one secret that can turn the trembling girl's heart, for she knows that Rādhā does not live for Her own pleasure but only for the happiness of Kṛṣṇa. So she does not say, "Come, enjoy." She says, "Come, for He is waiting, and this beauty of Yours, that so frightens You, is the one gift that will make Him glad." And because that is the only argument that can move Her, it moves Her. You are Kṛṣṇa-ārādhikā, the maidservant says, the very worshiper of Kṛṣṇa; Your own name is woven of the worship of Him. Your sweet heart and mind are now linked to the sweetness of this fresh form. Do not let the gift lie unoffered. Carry Your adolescence into the company of Your heart's beloved. Let it be of use to Him. Let Your sweet girlhood reign.

And so the song does not end in fear but in coronation. The very youth She wished to hide is lifted up and crowned: jayati, it is victorious, it conquers, it reigns supremely. The first faint budding becomes the throne; the hesitation becomes the offering; the girl who said "I am not ready" is the very one whose unreadiness, whose newness, whose untouched freshness is itself the conquering sweetness. O wind that moves the kuñja leaves, carry Her gently forward. O bower, hold Your prince a moment longer. O Rādhe, the trembling is permitted, and so is the going. Glory, glory to the springtime of Your love.