Part 35 (2/2)

Awake, my love! Let only life be given, And choking griefs that stifle now, will flee As darkness from the mountain-cave is driven By magic herbs that glitter brilliantly.

The silent face, round which the curls are keeping Their scattered watch, is sad to look upon As in the night some lonely lily, sleeping When musically humming bees are gone.

The girdle that from girlhood has befriended You, in love-secrets wise, discreet, and true, No longer tinkles, now your dance is ended, Faithful in life, in dying faithful too.

Your low, sweet voice to nightingales was given; Your idly graceful movement to the swans; Your grace to fluttering vines, dear wife in heaven; Your trustful, wide-eyed glances to the fawns:

You left your charms on earth, that I, reminded By them, might be consoled though you depart; But vainly! Far from you, by sorrow blinded, I find no prop of comfort for my heart.

Remember how you planned to make a wedding, Giving the vine-bride to her mango-tree; Before that happy day, dear, you are treading The path with no return. It should not be.

And this ashoka-tree that you have tended With eager longing for the blossoms red-- How can I twine the flowers that should have blended With living curls, in garlands for the dead?

The tree remembers how the anklets, tinkling On graceful feet, delighted other years; Sad now he droops, your form with sorrow sprinkling, And sheds his blossoms in a rain of tears.

Joy's sun is down, all love is fallen and perished, The song of life is sung, the spring is dead, Gone is the use of gems that once you cherished, And empty, ever empty, is my bed.

You were my comrade gay, my home, my treasure, You were my bosom's friend, in all things true, My best-loved pupil in the arts of pleasure: Stern death took all I had in taking you.

Still am I king, and rich in kingly fas.h.i.+on, Yet lacking you, am poor the long years through; I cannot now be won to any pa.s.sion, For all my pa.s.sions centred, dear, in you.

Aja commits the body of his beloved queen to the flames. A holy hermit comes to tell the king that his wife had been a nymph of heaven in a former existence, and that she has now returned to her home. But Aja cannot be comforted. He lives eight weary years for the sake of his young son, then is reunited with his queen in Paradise.

_Ninth canto. The hunt_.--This canto introduces us to King Dasharatha, father of the heroic Rama. It begins with an elaborate description of his glory, justice, prowess, and piety; then tells of the three princesses who became his wives: Kausalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra. In the beautiful springtime he takes an extended hunting-trip in the forest, during which an accident happens, big with fate.

He left his soldiers far behind one day In the wood, and following where deer-tracks lay, Came with his weary horse adrip with foam To river-banks where hermits made their home.

And in the stream he heard the water fill A jar; he heard it ripple clear and shrill, And shot an arrow, thinking he had found A trumpeting elephant, toward the gurgling sound.

Such actions are forbidden to a king, Yet Dasharatha sinned and did this thing; For even the wise and learned man is minded To go astray, by selfish pa.s.sion blinded.

He heard the startling cry, ”My father!” rise Among the reeds; rode up; before his eyes He saw the jar, the wounded hermit boy: Remorse transfixed his heart and killed his joy.

He left his horse, this monarch famous far, Asked him who drooped upon the water-jar His name, and from the stumbling accents knew A hermit youth, of lowly birth but true.

The arrow still undrawn, the monarch bore Him to his parents who, afflicted sore With blindness, could not see their only son Dying, and told them what his hand had done.

The murderer then obeyed their sad behest And drew the fixed arrow from his breast; The boy lay dead; the father cursed the king, With tear-stained hands, to equal suffering.

”In sorrow for your son you too shall die, An old, old man,” he said, ”as sad as I.”

Poor, trodden snake! He used his venomous sting, Then heard the answer of the guilty king:

”Your curse is half a blessing if I see The longed-for son who shall be born to me: The scorching fire that sweeps the well-ploughed field, May burn indeed, but stimulates the yield.

The deed is done; what kindly act can I Perform who, pitiless, deserve to die?”

”Bring wood,” he begged, ”and build a funeral pyre, That we may seek our son through death by fire.”

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