Poems old and new

Meera

Meera

A princess by birth
And a queen by marriage,
Meera worshiped Krishna
with a devotion unheard of.

People shunned her,
condemned her love
of the flute-playing God.
Indifferent to accusations
of rebellion and uncommon
absorption, Meera was lost
in her own world of Govinda’s
eternal melody of endless joy.

She hardly cared when the royal
priests forced a drink of poison
on her as a means of punishment
for her sublime crime of invincible
faith and deep devotion to the only
God she trusted, cherished,
composed and sang scores
of songs to His praise, thus ruling
the hearts of unnumbered Indians.

lines:21

Notes-
Meera(1498-1557)
Meera was one of the noted singer-saints of India. She was a princess of Rajasthan, a northern state of India. A devotee of Lord Krishna, Meera composed about 1300 devotional songs to His praise.

Krishna or Govinda-
Krishna is the eighth avatar of the supreme God Vishnu in Hinduism. He was the author of the Bhagavadgita, a Hindu religious text.
Govinda is one of his several names, which means the keeper of cows.