Sarojini Naidu’s poem describes a midnight dance in which music, movement, and scent merge into one dreamlike experience. The opening stanza listens closely to the music, which sighs, sleeps, wakes, weeps, laughs, and finally pants and sobs—as though the melody itself feels a woman’s pain and a lover’s longing. Then the speaker watches the dancers, whose bodies shine like wind-blown lilies and gleam like amber through golden veils. They glide, bend, wheel, and pause in a hypnotic rhythm. By the end, the music fades and the night grows heavy with the fragrance of champak trees, but the dancers’ returning steps still wake “love’s ecstasy and pain” in those who watch. The mood is sensuous, trance-like, and quietly intense, mixing beauty with longing.
The Dance of Love — Summary
The music sighs and slumbers. It stirs and sleeps again . . . Hush, it wakes and weeps and murmurs Like a woman's heart in pain ; Now it laughs and calls and coaxes. Like a lover in the night. Now it pants with sudden longing. Now it sobs with spent delight.
Like bright and wind-blown lilies, The dancers sway and shine. Swift in a rhythmic circle. Soft in a rhythmic line ; Their lithe limbs gleam like amber Thro' their veils of golden gauze, As they glide and bend and beckon, As they wheel and wind and pause.
The voices of lutes and cymbals Fail on the failing breeze. And the midnight's soul grows weary With the scent of the champak trees ; But the subtle feet of the dancers In a long, returning chain. Wake in the heart of lovers Love's ecstasy and pain.