The Stars in their beauty come forth on high, And through the dark blue night

The Moon rides on triumphant, broad and bright. Distinct and darkening in her light Appears that Spectre foul,

The moon-beam gives his face and form to sight,
The shape of man,

The living form and face of Arvalan !...
His hands are spread to clasp her.

14.

But at that sight of dread the Maid awoke;
As if a lightning-stroke

Had burst the spell of fear,

Away she broke all franticly, and fled.
There stood a temple near beside the way,
An open fane of Pollear, gentle God,
To whom the travellers for protection pray.
With elephantine head and eye severe,
Here stood his image, such as when he seiz'd
And tore the rebel Giant from the ground,

With mighty trunk wreathed round
His impotent bulk, and on his tusks, on high
Impaled upheld him between earth and sky.

15.

Thither the affrighted Maiden sped her flight, And she hath reach'd the place of sanctuary; And now within the temple in despite, Yea, even before the altar, in his sight, Hath Arvalan with fleshly arm of might Seized her. That instant the insulted God

Caught him aloft, and from his sinuous grasp, As if from some tort catapult let loose, Over the forest hurl'd him all abroad.

16.

O'ercome with dread,

She tarried not to see what heavenly Power Had saved her in that hour;

Breathless and faint she fled.

And now her foot struck on the knotted root Of a broad manchineil, and there the Maid Fell senselessly beneath the deadly shade.

VI.

CASYAPA.

1.

SHALL this then be thy fate, O lovely Maid,
Thus, Kailyal, must thy sorrows then be ended?
Her face upon the ground,
Her arms at length extended,
There like a corpse behold her laid
Beneath the deadly shade.

What if the hungry Tyger, prowling by,
Should snuff his banquet nigh?
Alas, Death needs not now his ministry;
The baleful boughs hang o'er her,
The poison-dews descend.
What Power will now restore her?
What God will be her friend?

2.

Bright and so beautiful was that fair night, It might have calm'd the gay amid their mirth, And given the wretched a delight in tears. One of the Glendoveers,

The loveliest race of all of heavenly birth, Hovering with gentle motion o'er the earth, Amid the moonlight air,

In sportive flight was floating round and round, Unknowing where his joyous way was tending. He saw the Maid where motionless she lay, And stoopt his flight descending,

And raised her from the ground.

Her heavy eye-lids are half closed,

Her cheeks are pale and livid like the dead, Down hang her loose arms lifelessly, Down hangs her languid head.

3.

With timely pity touch'd for one so fair,
The gentle Glendoveer

Press'd her thus pale and senseless to his breast,
And springs aloft in air with sinewy wings,
And bears the Maiden there,

Where Himakoot, the holy Mount, on high
From mid-earth rising in mid-Heaven,
Shines in its glory like the throne of Even.
Soaring with strenuous flight above,
He bears her to the blessed Grove,
Where in his ancient and august abodes,
There dwells old Casyapa, the Sire of Gods.

4.

The Father of the Immortals sate,
Where underneath the Tree of Life,
The Fountains of the Sacred River sprung;
The Father of the Immortals smiled
Benignant on his son.

Knowest thou, he said, my child,

Ereenia, knowest thou whom thou bringest here, A mortal to the holy atmosphere ?

EREENIA.

I found her in the Groves of Earth,
Beneath a poison-tree,

Thus lifeless as thou seest her.

In pity have I brought her to these bowers,
Not erring, Father! by that smile...
By that benignant eye!

CASYAPA.

What if the Maid be sinful? if her ways Were ways of darkness, and her death predoom'd To that black hour of midnight, when the Moon Hath turn'd her face away,

Unwilling to behold

The unhappy end of guilt?

EREENIA.

Then what a lie, my Sire, were written here,
In these fair characters! and she had died,
Sure proof of purer life and happier doom,
Now in the moonlight, in the eye of Heaven,
If I had left so fair a flower to fade.
But thou,... all knowing as thou art,
Why askest thou of me?

O Father, oldest, holiest, wisest, best,
To whom all things are plain,
Why askest thou of me?