The Asuras once again appear,
And seize Ladurlad and the Glendoveer.

11.

"Hold your accursed hands!"

A voice exclaimed, whose dread commands Were feared through all the vaults of Padalon; And there among them, in the midnight air, The presence of the mighty Baly shone.

He, making manifest his mightiness,

Put forth on every side an hundred arms, And seized the Sorceress: maugre all her charms, Her and her fiendish ministers he caught With force as uncontrollable as fate; And that unhappy Soul, to whom The Almighty Rajah's power availeth not Living to avert, nor dead to mitigate, His righteous doom.

12.

"Help, help, Kehama! Father, help!" he cried; But Baly tarried not to abide

That mightier Power: with irresistible feet He stamped and cleft the Earth; it opened wide, And gave him way to his own Judgment-seat. Down, like a plummet, to the World below He sunk, and bore his prey

To punishment deserved, and endless woe.

XVIII.

KEHAMA'S DESCENT.

1.

THE Earth, by Baly's feet divided,
Closed o'er his way as to the Judgment-seat
He plunged, and bore his prey.

Scarce had the shock subsided,

When, darting from the Swerga's heavenly heights,

Kehama, like a thunder-bolt, alights.

In wrath he came: a bickering flame Flashed from his eyes, which made the moonlight dim;

And passion forcing way from every limb, Like furnace-smoke, with terrors wrapt him round. Furious he smote the ground;

Earth trembled underneath the dreadful stroke, Again in sunder riven;

He hurled in rage his whirling weapon down. But, lo! the fiery sheckra to his feet Returned, as if by equal force redriven; And from the abyss the voice of Baly came: "Not yet, O Rajah! hast thou won

The realms of Padalon!

Earth and the Swerga are thine own;
But, till Kehama shall subdue the throne
Of Hell, in torments Yamen holds his son."

2.

"Fool that he is! in torments let him lie!" Kehama, wrathful at his son, replied. "But what am I,

That thou shouldst brave me?" kindling in his pride,

The dreadful Rajah cried.

"Ho! Yamen! hear me. God of Padalon!
Prepare thy throne,

And let the Amreeta cup

Be ready for my lips, when I anon
Triumphantly shall take my seat thereon,
And plant upon thy neck my royal feet."

3.

In voice like thunder thus the Rajah cried, Impending o'er the abyss, with menacing hand Put forth, as in the action of command,

And
eyes that darted their red anger down.
Then, drawing back, he let the earth subside,
And, as his wrath relaxed, surveyed,
Thoughtfully and silently, the mortal Maid.
Her eye the while was on the farthest sky,
Where up the ethereal height
Ereenia rose, and passed away from sight.
Never had she so joyfully

Beheld the coming of the Glendoveer,
Dear as he was and he deserved to be,
As now she saw him rise and disappear.

Come now what will," within her heart said she; "For thou art safe, and what have I to fear?"

4.

Meantime the Almighty Rajah, late
In power and majesty and wrath arrayed,
Had laid his terrors by,

And gazed upon the Maid.

Pride could not quit his eye,

Nor that remorseless nature from his front
Depart; yet whoso had beheld him then
Had felt some admiration mixed with dread,
And might have said,

That sure he seemed to be the King of Men! Less than the greatest that he could not be, Who carried in his port such might and majesty.

5.

In fear no longer for the Glendoveer,

Now towards the Rajah Kailyal turned her eyes, As if to ask what doom awaited her.

But then surprise,

Even as with fascination, held them there; So strange a thing it seemed to see the change Of purport in that all-commanding brow, Which thoughtfully was bent upon her now. Wondering she gazed, the while her Father's eye Was fixed upon Kehama haughtily: It spake defiance to him, high disdain,

Stern patience unsubduable by pain,
And pride triumphant over agony.

6.

“Ladurlad,” said the Rajah, " thou and I
Alike have done the work of Destiny,
Unknowing each to what the impulse tended;
But now that over Earth and Heaven my reign
Is stablished, and the ways of Fate are plain
Before me, here our enmity is ended:
I take away thy Curse." As thus he said,
The fire which in Ladurlad's heart and brain
Was burning, fled, and left him free from pain.
So rapidly his torments were departed,
That at the sudden ease he started
As with a shock; and to his head
His hands upfled,

As if he felt through every failing limb
power and sense of life forsaking him

The

7.

Then, turning to the Maid, the Rajah cried,
"O Virgin! above all of mortal birth
Favored alike in beauty and in worth,
And in the glories of thy destiny,
Now let thy happy heart exult with pride;
For Fate hath chosen thee

To be Kehama's bride,

To be the Queen of Heaven and Earth,
And of whatever Worlds beside