Page images
PDF
EPUB

O check thy steeds; drive slower, we implɔre;
And let us see our Rama's face once more.

His mother's heart is, surely, barred with steel,
Or it had broken with the pangs we feel.

Sita, well done! Videha's flower and pride,
Still, like his shadow, by thy husband's side:
Cheering his path with thy loved presence still,
As the sun never sets on Meru's hill.'

And thou, O Lakshman, shalt have honour too,
Serving thy brother with a love so true :
Yea, noblest honour for thy noble deeds,
For this the path to heaven and bliss that leads."

Thus in their sorrow cried the weeping throng: "Drive on," said Rama, we delay too long." Perplext, the driver could not both obey;

[ocr errors]

Hasten," cried Rama: cried the people, "Stay."
From the men's eyes the tears in torrents flowed,
And laid the dust upon the royal road;
While, in the woe that rent their bosoms, all

1A sacred mountain placed by the continents of which the earth is made up. (a yojana is reckoned variously at four residence of the God Brahma.

Hindus in the centre of the seven It is said to be 84,000 yojanas high and nine miles). Its summit is a

The women rained their tears, like drops that fall
From the drencht lotus-leaves upon the lake,
Which darting fish, glittering under, shake.

The king, as Rama from his sight was borne,
Fell, like a Sal tree by the roots uptorn;

And the loud wailing cry that rent the skies
Made Rama for a moment turn his eyes

Where his sad mother and her train stood round
His hapless father fainting on the ground.
Then, as a young thing, in the meshes caught,
Looks to its mother with a quick glance fraught
With utter anguish, bound by duty's chain,
Gazing in most intolerable pain,

One long last look of love and grief he cast,

Then urged the steeds till out of sight he past.

1

THE HERMIT'S SON.

"But the cxiles were no sooner gone than the aged monarch drooped in sadness. "Six days he sat and mourned, and pined for Rama all that weary time." In the middle of the seventh night a crime, inadvertently committed in his youth, rose up in his mind: he sought sympathy from Kausalya, his first wife, the mother of the banished Rama, and asked her to listen to his tale, for to this he attributed his present affliction." MRS. SPEIR.

Heavy was his soul within him, still in Dasaratha's breast Memory of woe kept brooding and forbade the king to rest. Deep despair upon his spirit, mourning for his Rama, lay, As when clouds have veiled the glory of the parting Lord of

Day.

As he thought with bitter anguish of the deed his hand had

done,

Spake he sorrowing to Kausalya sighing weeping for her son: "Art thou waking, mournful lady? Give me all thy listen

ing ear;

Hearken to a tale of sorrow, to an ancient deed of fear.

Surely each shall reap the harvest of his actions here below: Righteous deed shall bear a blessing, sin shall ever bring

forth woe.

'Tis a deed of youthful folly brings on me this evil day,

As a young child tasting poison eats his death in heedless

play.

'Twas a day of early rain-time, filling my young soul with

love,

When the sun had dried the earth-dews with his hot beams

from above,

And in highest heaven turning journeyed on his southward

road,

Speeding to the gloomy region, the Departed's sad abode. Balmy cool the air was breathing, welcome clouds were float

ing by,

Humming bees with joyful music swelled the glad wild pea

cock's cry.

Their wing-feathers wet with bathing, birds, slow flying to

the trees,

Rested in the topmost branches waving to the western breeze. Like the Ocean many-twinkling, gold-shot with gay peacocks' sheen,

Gleaming with the fallen rain-drops, sea-bright all the bills

were seen;

[tain's side

While like serpents, winding swiftly, torrents from the moun

« PreviousContinue »