śrī kṛṣṇa stotram (brahma kṛtam)

Brahma's plea to Krishna, from the thirty-second chapter of the Krishna-janma-khanda in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, and it is one sustained metaphor held for eight verses: save me, Hari, sunk in the ocean of desire. Each verse adds another feature to that ocean — its water ill-repute, its seed the forgetting of devotion, its waves the succession of births, its crocodiles women, its current appetite itself; nectar at the first taste and a house of poison in the outcome; its entrance the road to Yama and its door of release very wide. The fifth verse turns the figure round and asks in its own terms: lift us out by the boat of intelligence, with discernment for oars, for you are yourself the helmsman. Its close is unexpected. Brahma says he is already in the world he wanted, and asks only not to be shown that bad dream again.