ശ്രീ കാലികാ സ്തോത്രമ്

A short Kalika hymn that is a feat of sound before it is anything else. Its first five verses all close on the same line, may Kali who carries the world take up residence in my mind, and each sustains a single rhyming sound through all four of its quarters: one verse runs throughout on urya, the next on ukta, the third on ira, the fourth on ana. The images are carried along inside that constraint rather than driving it, so she is by turns unflinching against the wicked, red-lotus-eyed with lac on her lips, her anklets sounding, silk-clad, moon-faced, and cleansing of sin. Its opening claim is the boldest thing in it: that even a brute of a man, merely by looking on her worship, goes to the city of the gods. The last three verses change metre twice over and close by asking simply for what is good.