Nurtured with tenderer care than that her darling tree.'

LXVIII.

There girt with emerald steps a bright lake gleams,

Where the gold lotus fires the lily's white:

The swans that sail upon its silver streams
Shall hail thy coming with renewed delight,
And love the cool waves better for the sight
That bids them linger near the pleasant shore,
Without a wish to seek in distant flight

The mountain lake that seemed so dear before,

That lovely mountain lake now scarce remembered more.

LXIX.

Deckt with smooth sapphires, rising from the fount,

A spot beloved by my young bride of old,

Sacred to rest and pleasure, stands a mount,
Which a thick plantain-grove belts round with gold.
E'en now, dark Cloud, as these sad eyes behold
Thy sombre mass girt by thy lightning's sheen,

"If the flowers had been her own children, she
Could never have nursed them more tenderly."
The Sensitive Plant.

They see the spot of which my tongue has told:
Back to my soul comes fresh that glorious scene,

The plantains' circling gold, the hillock's velvet green.

LXX.

Sweet clustering trailers, and each fairest flower

That charms the sense or captivates the eye,

Give grace and odour to my lady's bower.

The bright Asoka and the Kesar vie

For her caresses as my love walks by:

That asks the pressure of her foot,' and this,

Wild for the joy for which I vainly sigh,

With me aspiring seeks a higher bliss,

To touch those perfect lips with a long loving kiss.

LXXI.

See, on a pedestal of crystal placed,

A golden column, very tall and fair,

With richest gems, like budding cane-shoots, graced, Towers o'er the waving trees; and gleaming there,

"I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet

Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet."

The Sensitive Plant,

The blue-neckt peacock drinks the evening air;

And when my darling wanders forth alone,

He tries each art to drive away her care,

Dispreads his plumes and dances to the tone

Of the melodious chime made by her tinkling zone.

LXXII.

Led by these tokens thou wilt surely know
The once bright dwelling of my love and me,
When our glad lives were strangers yet to woe:
But altered now that happy spot may be,

Since the stern vengeance of my lord's decree

Has torn me far from all I loved away:

The lotus glories in the sun, but he

Leaves his sad mistress at the close of day

To mourn with folded blooms the light that made her gay.

LXXIII.

Gently descending, on that hillock fall,
Not in full glory lest that form of thine
In all its splendour, all its might, appal
My timid lady. Let thy lightning shine

Like sportive fire-flies in a flashing line,

And to thy friendly eyes my darling show.
She stands within her chamber, most divine

Of all the works of God, with rosy glow

Of lips, with teeth of pearl, eyes of the startled roe.

LXXIV.

O, see her silent there, my second life,

Like a poor love-bird mourning for her mate,
My lonely, weeping, miserable wife,

Weeping at early morn, at evening late,

With bitter tears, her banisht husband's fate.

Where hast thou seen a nymph so soft of mould,

So tender, loving, and disconsolate?

Sure the sad lady's spirit dwelt of old

In some frail lotus flower that shrank from rain and cold.

LXXV.

See, on her hand her faded cheek reclines;
Long hanging tresses veil her drooping head;
Bedimmed with tears her eye no longer shines,
And the bright colour of her lip is fled,

For dewy sighs have washed away the red.

Like the cold moon is she, sad, feeble, pale,

When o'er its face thy pall, dark Cloud, is spread,
And all the silver beams, imprisoned, fail

To penetrate the shroud, to pierce the sombre veil.

LXXVI.

Now as the sight of thee renews her woe,

She turns to sacrifice: from her wild eyes,
That picture forth my form, new torrents flow,
To see my mournful wasted image rise.
Then to her favourite bird she sadly cries:

'Dost thou remember, pet, when thou wast free?
And is the mate, with whom, from summer skies
Down sailing, in the well-known roosting tree

'Twas once thy lot to rest, still dearly loved by thee?'

LXXVII.

Or she will touch her lute with careless grace,

And with her low soft voice prepare to sing

Some little ballad of mine ancient race:

But soon the tears that flow from memory's spring