THE CURSE OF KEHAMA. I. THE FUNERAL. 1. MIDNIGHT, and yet no eye Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep! Behold her streets a-blaze With light that seems to kindle the red sky, Her myriads swarming through the crowded ways! Master and slave, old age and infancy, All, all abroad to gaze; House-top and balcony Clustered with women, who throw back their veils With unimpeded and insatiate sight To view the funeral pomp which passes by, As if the mournful rite Were but to them a scene of joyance and delight. 2. Vainly, ye blessed twinklers of the night, Quench'd in the unnatural light which might out-stare And thou from thy celestial way Blotting the lights of heaven With one portentous glare. Behold the fragrant. smoke in many a fold A dark and waving canopy. 3. Hark! 't is the funeral trumpet's breath! At once ten thousand drums begin, The song of praise is drown'd Amid the deafening sound; You hear no more the trumpet's tone, You hear no more the mourner's moan, Though the trumpet's breath, and the dirge of death, Swell with commingled force the funeral yell. But rising over all in one acclaim Is heard the echoed and re-echoed name, From all that countless rout; Arvalan! Arvalan! Arvalan! Arvalan! Ten times ten thousand voices in one shout 4. The death-procession moves along; With quick rebound of sound, Arvalan! Arvalan! The universal multitude reply. A glow is on his face,... a lively red; Which o'er his cheek a reddening shade hath shed; But the motion comes from the bearers' tread, As the body, borne aloft in state, Sways with the impulse of its own dead weight. 5. Close following his dead son, Kehama came, Nor calling the dear name; With head deprest and funeral vest, Silent and lost in thought he moves along. King of the World, his slaves unenvying now Behold their wretched Lord; rejoiced they see The mighty Rajah's misery; That Nature in his pride hath dealt the blow, And taught the Master of Mankind to know Even he himself is man, and not exempt from woe. 6. O sight of grief! the wives of Arvalan, With gold and jewels bright, With symphony, and dance, and song, Move onward to their death; The clarions' stirring breath Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold, That on the agitated air Flutters and glitters to the torch's glare. 7. A man and maid of aspect wan and wild, Who raised his fatal hand at Arvalan ? Then were all hearts of all the throng deploring; 8. Far, far behind, beyond all reach of sight, Rolls on the undistinguishable clamour, Of streams which down the wintry mountain Of breakers on a rocky shore, pour, |