The height of noon, and he was lying there

In the broad sun, all bare!

What if he felt no wind? the air was still.
That was the general will

Of Nature, not his own peculiar doom;
Yon rows of rice erect and silent stand,
The shadow of the Cocoa's lightest plume
Is steady on the sand.

5.

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!

Exclaim'd the wretched man in his despair: Air knows him, Water knows him; Sleep His dreadful word will keep;

Even in the grave there is no rest for me, Cut off from that last hope, ... the wretch's joy; And Veeshnoo hath no power to save,

Nor Seeva to destroy.

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,

and yet to thank thee thus!

7.

Here then, the maiden cried, dear Father, here
Raise our own Goddess, our divine Preserver!
The mighty of the earth despise her rites,
She loves the poor who serve her.
Set up her Image here,

With heart and voice the guardian Goddess bless,
For jealously would she resent

Neglect and thanklessness;

Set up her Image here,

And bless her for her aid with tongue and soul sincere.

8.

So saying on her knees the maid
Began the pious toil.

Soon their joint labour 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 dextrous 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.

29

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.

2.

Behold them wandering on their hopeless way,
Unknowing where they stray,

Yet sure where'er they stop to find no rest.
The evening gale is blowing,