This verse relies on an Indian folk-traditional idea that raindrops falling into the sea during the month of Swati are the source of pearls-- if they reach the depths of the sea intact, and if they are then swallowed by oysters. The verse dramatizes the difficulties and dangers of this process. There's a similar tradition in Persian, or at least in the Persian ghazal tradition. The first line, appropriately to mushairah performance conditions, is entirely striking and powerful, but quite obscure. Why should waves be nets, and why should their swirling crests be hundreds of round crocodile-mouths? In the second line we receive the necessary information-- but, most effectively, only at the last possible moment. Even the mention of the drop doesn't help much, for the usual range of relationships between drops and oceans have nothing to do with the imagery of the first line; for more typical drops and oceans, see 21,8 . Not until the end of the verse when we hear the closural word 'pearl', the rhyme -word itself, do we finally have the necessary information to make sense of the verse. And then, of course we grasp it completely and all at once. As Mihr nicely observes, the very 'non-describedness' of the dangers facing the hapless, vulnerable, gallant, ambitious drop is also part of the pleasure of the verse. We are left to imagine them for ourselves. Which of course we are all too well able to do, for don't we all go through something like the travels (and travails) of the drop? graphics/nihang.jpg graphics/pearloyster.jpg