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,
Your feeble beams ye shed,

Quench'd in the unnatural light which might out-stare
Even the broad eye of day;

And thou from thy celestial way
Pourest, O Moon, an ineffectual ray !
For lo ten thousand torches flame and flare
Upon the midnight air,
Blotting the lights of heaven

With one portentous glare.

Behold the fragrant smoke in many a fold
Ascending, floats along the fiery sky,
And hangeth visible on high,

A dark and waving canopy.

3.

Hark! 't is the funeral trumpet's breath!
'Tis the dirge of death!

At once ten thousand drums begin,
With one long thunder-peal the ear assailing;
Ten thousand voices then join in,

And with one deep and general din
Pour their wild wailing.

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
Call Arvalan! The overpowering sound,
From house to house repeated rings about,
From tower to tower rolls round.

4.

The death-procession moves along;
Their bald heads shining to the torches' ray,
The Bramins lead the way,
Chaunting the funeral song.
And now at once they shout,
Arvalan! Arvalan!

With quick rebound of sound,
All in accordant cry,

Arvalan! Arvalan!

The universal multitude reply.
In vain ye thunder on his ear the name;
Would ye awake the dead?
Borne upright in his palankeen,
There Arvalan is seen!

...

A glow is on his face,. a lively red;
It is the crimson canopy

Which o'er his cheek a reddening shade hath shed; he nods his head,...

He moves,.

...

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 joining in the ritual song,

Nor calling the dear name;
With head deprest and funeral vest,
And arms enfolded on his breast,
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,
Young Azla, young Nealliny, are seen!
Their widow-robes of white,

With gold and jewels bright,
Each like an Eastern queen.
Woe! woe! around their palankeen,
As on a bridal day,

With symphony, and dance, and song,
Their kindred and their friends come on.
The dance of sacrifice! the funeral song !
And next the victim slaves in long array,
Richly bedight to grace the fatal day,
Move onward to their death;

The clarions' stirring breath

Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold,
And swells the woven gold,