nityānandāṣṭakam (vṛndāvana dāsa ṭhākura kṛta)

Eight verses to Nityananda by Vrindavana Dasa Thakura, and they are not in Sanskrit but in Brajabuli, the made-up literary language the Bengali Vaishnava poets used, which is why the vocabulary keeps sliding. Every verse ends the same way, asking to be given a place near his feet and addressing him as the beloved of Vasudha and Jahnava. What it describes is a body in motion: eyes rolling and brimming with love, earrings swinging against the cheeks, bees at the malati garland, arms reaching to the knees, a deep roar splitting the ten directions, leaps that shame thunder, and the ground shaking where he runs along the river. The last verse is the finest and the strangest — lightning shows in his slight smile, he falls to the earth in a mood nobody can identify, his lips shake when he tries to speak, and he lifts his arms and weeps.