10.

And hath he spared us then? she cried, Half rising as she spake,

For hope and joy the sudden strength supplied;
In mercy hath he curb'd his cruel will,
That still thou livest? But as thus she said,
Impatient of that look of hope, her sire
Shook hastily his head;

Oh! he hath laid a Curse upon my life,
A clinging curse, quoth he;

Hath sent a fire into my heart and brain,
A burning fire, forever there to be!
The Winds of Heaven must never breathe on me;
The Rains and Dews must never fall on me ;
Water must mock my thirst, and shrink from me;
The common Earth must yield no fruit to me;
Sleep, blessed Sleep! must never light on me;
And Death, who comes to all, must fly from me,
And never, never, set Ladurlad free.

11.

This is a dream! exclaimed the incredulous maid,
Yet in her voice the while a fear express'd,
Which in her larger eye was manifest.
This is a dream! she rose, and laid her hand
Upon her father's brow, to try the charm;
He could not bear the pressure there; - he
shrunk ;

He warded off her arm,

As though it were an enemy's blow; he smote His daughter's arm aside.

Her eye glanced down; his mantle she espied, And caught it up. - Oh misery! Kailyal cried, He bore me from the river-depths, and yet His garment is not wet!

IV.

THE DEPARTURE.

1.

RECLINED beneath a Cocoa's feathery shade Ladurlad lies,

And Kailyal on his lap her head hath laid, To hide her streaming eyes. The boatman, sailing on his easy way, With envious eye beheld them where they lay; For every herb and flower

Was fresh and fragrant with the early dew; Sweet sung the birds in that delicious hour, And the cool gale of morning, as it blew, Not yet subdued by day's increasing power, Ruffling the surface of the silvery stream, Swept o'er the moisten'd sand, and raised no shower.

Telling their tale of love,

The boatman thought they lay

At that lone hour, and who so blest as they!

2.

But now the Sun in heaven is high;

The little songsters of the sky

Sit silent in the sultry hour;

Is it indeed a dream? He rose to try;
Impatient to the water side he went,
And down he bent,

And in the stream he plunged his hasty arm
To break the visionary charm.
With fearful eye and fearful heart,
His daughter watch'd the event;
She saw the start and shudder,
She heard the in-drawn groan,

For the Water knew Kehama's charm;
The Water shrunk before his arm;

His dry hand moved about unmoisten'd there;
As easily might that dry hand avail

To stop the passing gale,

Or grasp the impassive air.

He is Almighty then!

6.

Oh! wrong not them! quoth Kailyal;
Wrong not the Heavenly Powers!

Our hope is all in them. They are not blind!
And lighter wrongs than ours,

And lighter crimes than his,

Have drawn the Incarnate down among mankind.
Already have the Immortals heard our cries,
And in the mercy of their righteousness
Beheld us in the hour of our distress!
She spake with streaming eyes,
Where pious love and ardent feeling beam.
And turning to the Image threw
Her grateful arms around it. - It was thou
Who savedst me from the stream!

My Marriataly, it was thou!
I had not else been here
To share my Father's Curse,

So saying, on her knees the maid

Began the pious toil.

Soon their joint labor scoops the easy soil; They raise the Image up with reverent hand, And round its rooted base they heap the sand. O Thou whom we adore,

O Marriataly, thee do I implore, The virgin cried; my Goddess, pardon thou The unwilling wrong, that I no more, With dance and song,

Can do thy daily service, as of yore! The flowers which last I wreathed around thy brow,

Are withering there; and never now
Shall I at eve adore thee,
And swimming round, with arms outspread,
Poise the full pitcher on my head,

In dexterous dance before thee,
While underneath the reedy shed, at rest
My father sat the evening rites to view,
And blest thy name, and blest
His daughter too.

9.

Then heaving from her heart a heavy sigh, O Goddess! from that happy home, cried she, The Almighty Man hath forced us! And homeward with the thought unconsciously She turn'd her dizzy eye. But there on high, With many a dome, and pinnacle, and spire,

The summits of the Golden Palaces Blazed in the dark blue sky, aloft, like fire. Father, away! she cried, away!

Why linger we so nigh?

For not to him hath Nature given
The thousand eyes of Deity,

Always and every where, with open sight,
To persecute our flight!
Away-away! she said,

And took her father's hand, and like a child
He followed where she led.

V.

THE SEPARATION.

1.

EVENING comes on: arising from the stream, Homeward the tall flamingo wings his flight; And where he sails athwart the setting beam, His scarlet plumage glows with deeper light. The watchman, at the wish'd approach of night, Gladly forsakes the field, where he all day, To scare the winged plunderers from their prey, With shout and sling, on yonder clay-built height, Hath borne the sultry ray. Hark! at the Golden Palaces The Bramin strikes the hour.

For leagues and leagues around, the brazen sound Rolls through the stillness of departing day, Like thunder far away.

4.

Before them, full in sight,

A white flag, flapping to the winds of night,
Marks where the tiger seized a human prey.
Far, far away, with natural dread
Shunning the perilous spot,

At other times abhorrent had they fled;
But now they heed it not.

Nothing they care; the boding death-flag now
In vain for them may gleam and flutter there.
Despair and agony in him

Prevent all other thought;

And Kailyal hath no heart or sense for aught, Save her dear father's strange and miserable lot.

5.

There, in the woodland shade,
Upon the lap of that unhappy maid,
His head Ladurlad laid,

And never word he spake;
Nor heaved he one complaining sigh,
Nor groaned he with his misery,
But silently, for her dear sake,
Endured the raging pain.
And now the moon was hid on high;
No stars were glimmering in the sky;
She could not see her father's eye,

How red with burning agony:
Perhaps he may be cooler now,
She hoped, and long'd to touch his brow
With gentle hand, yet did not dare
To lay the painful pressure there.
Now forward from the tree she bent,
And anxiously her head she leant,
And listened to his breath.
Ladurlad's breath was short and quick,
Yet regular it came,
And like the slumber of the sick,
In pantings still the same.
Oh, if he sleeps!- her lips unclose,
Intently listening to the sound,
That equal sound so like repose.
Still quietly the sufferer lies,
Bearing his torment now with resolute will;
He neither moves, nor groans, nor sighs.

Doth satiate cruelty bestow

This little respite to his woe, She thought, or are there Gods who look below?

6. Perchance, thought Kailyal, willingly deceived, Our Marriataly hath his pain relieved, And she hath bade the blessed Sleep assuage His agony, despite the Rajah's rage. That was a hope which fill'd her gushing eyes, And made her heart in silent yearnings rise, To bless the power divine in thankfulness. And yielding to that joyful thought her mind, Backward the maid her aching head reclined Against the tree, and to her father's breath In fear she hearken'd still with earnest ear. But soon forgetful fits the effort broke: In starts of recollection then she woke, Till now, benignant Nature overcame The Virgin's weary and exhausted frame;

Nor able more her painful watch to keep, She closed her heavy lids, and sunk to sleep.

7.

Vain was her hope! he did not rest from pain;
The Curse was burning in his brain;
Alas! the innocent maiden thought he slept;
But Sleep the Rajah's dread commandment kept;
Sleep knew Kehama's Curse.

The dews of night fell round them now;
They never bathed Ladurlad's brow;
They knew Kehama's Curse.

The night-wind is abroad;

Aloft it moves among the stirring trees; He only heard the breeze, — No healing aid to him it brought; It play'd around his head, and touch'd him not; It knew Kehama's curse.

8.

Listening, Ladurlad lay in his despair, If Kailyal slept, for wherefore should she share Her father's wretchedness, which none could cure? Better alone to suffer; he must bear The burden of his Curse; but why endure The unavailing presence of her grief? She, too, apart from him, might find relief; For dead the Rajah deem'd her, and as thus Already she his dread revenge had fled, So might she still escape, and live secure.

9.

Gently he lifts his head,

And Kailyal does not feel;
Gently he rises up,- she slumbers still;
Gently he steals away with silent tread.
Anon she started, for she felt him gone;

She call'd, and through the stillness of the night,
His step was heard in flight.

Mistrustful for a moment of the sound, She listens; till the step is heard no more; But then she knows that he indeed is gone, And with a thrilling shriek she rushes on. The darkness and the wood impede her speed; She lifts her voice again

A Tiger's howl, loud echoing through the wood,
Roused her; the dreadful sound she knew,
And turn'd instinctively to what she fear'd.
Far off the Tiger's hungry howl was heard ;
A nearer horror met the maiden's view,
For right before her a dim form appear'd,
A human form in that black night,
Distinctly shaped by its own lurid light,
Such light as the sickly Moon is seen to shed,
Through spell-raised fogs, a bloody, baleful red.

12.

That Spectre fix'd his eyes upon her full; The light which shone in their accursed orbs Was like a light from Hell;

And it grew deeper, kindling with the view. She could not turn her sight

From that infernal gaze, which like a spell Bound her, and held her rooted to the ground. It palsied every power;

Her limbs avail'd her not in that dread hour;
There was no moving thence;
Thought, memory, sense were gone :
She heard not now the Tiger's nearer cry;

She thought not on her father now;
Her cold heart's-blood ran back;
Her hand lay senseless on the bough it clasp'd;
Her feet were motionless;

Her fascinated eyes

Like the stone eyeballs of a statue fix'd, Yet conscious of the sight that blasted them.

13.

The wind is abroad;

It opens the clouds;
Scattered before the gale,

They skurry through the sky,

And the darkness, retiring, rolls over the vale.
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 moonbeam 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 flea. 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 manchineel, 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 Tiger, 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 stoop'd his flight descending,
And raised her from the ground.
Her heavy eyelids 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.