11.

The Asuras, often put to flight
And scattered in the fields of light
By their foes' celestial might,
Forged this enchanted armor for the fight.
'Mid fires intense did they anneal,

In mountain furnaces, the quivering steel, Till, trembling through each deepening hue, It settled in a midnight blue;

Last they cast it, to aslake,
In the penal icy lake.

Then they consigned it to the Giant brood; And, while they forged the impenetrable arms, The Evil Powers, to oversee them, stood, And there imbued

The work of Giant strength with magic charms.
Foul Arvalan with joy surveyed

The crescent sabre's cloudy blade,
With deeper joy the impervious mail,
The shield and helmet of avail.
Soon did he himself array,
And bade her speed him on his way.

12.

Then she led him to the den, Where her chariot, night and day, Stood harnessed ready for the way. Two Dragons, yoked in adamant, convey The magic car: from either collar sprung

An adamantine rib, which met in air,

O'erarched and crossed and bent, diverging there, And firmly in its are upbore,

Upon their brazen necks, the seat of power.
Arvalan mounts the car, and in his hand
Receives the magic reins from Lorrinite;
The Dragons, long obedient to command,
Their ample sails expand;

Like steeds well broken to fair lady's hand,
They feel the reins of might,

And up the northern sky begin their flight.

13.

Son of the Wicked, doth thy soul delight To think its hour of vengeance now is nigh? Lo! where the far-off light

Of Indra's palace flashes on his sight; And Meru's heavenly summit shines on high, With clouds of glory bright,

Amid the dark-blue sky.

Already, in his hope, doth he espy,
Himself secure in mail of tenfold charms,
Ereenia writhing from the magic blade,

The Father sent to bear his Curse, the Maid
Resisting vainly in his impious arms.

14.

Ah, Sinner! whose anticipating soul

Incurs the guilt even when the crime is spared! Joyous toward Meru's summit on he fared, While the twin Dragons, rising as he guides,

With steady flight, steer northward for the Pole. Anon, with irresistible control,

Force mightier far than his arrests their course; It wrought as though a Power unseen had caught Their adamantine yokes to drag them on. Straight on they bend their way; and now, in vain, Upward doth Arvalan direct the rein:

The rein of magic might avails no more; Bootless its strength against that unseen Power, That, in their mid career,

Hath seized the Chariot and the Charioteer.
With hands resisting, and down-pressing feet,
Upon their hold insisting,

He struggles to maintain his difficult seat. Seeking in vain with that strange Power to vie, Their doubled speed the affrighted Dragons try. Forced in a stream from whence was no retreat, Strong as they are, behold them whirled along, Headlong, with useless pennons, through the sky!

15.

What Power was that, which, with resistless might,
Foiled the dread magic thus of Lorrinite?
'Twas all-commanding Nature. They were here
Within the sphere of the adamantine rocks
Which girt Mount Meru round, as far below
That heavenly height where Ganges hath its birth
Involved in clouds and light,

So far above its roots of ice and snow.

16.

On, on, they roll,— rapt headlong they roll on:
The lost canoe, less rapidly than this,
Down the precipitous stream is whirled along
To the brink of Niagara's dread abyss.
On, on, they roll, and now, with shivering shock,
Are dashed against the rock that girds the Pole.
Down from his shattered mail the unhappy Soul
Is dropped, ten thousand thousand fathoms down,
Till in an ice-rift, 'mid the eternal snow,

Foul Arvalan is stopped. There let him howl,
Groan there, and there, with unavailing moan,

--

For aid on his Almighty Father call.

17.

All human sounds are lost

Amid those deserts of perpetual frost,

Old Winter's drear domain,
Beyond the limits of the living World,
Beyond Kehama's reign.

Of utterance and of motion soon bereft,
Frozen to the ice-rock, there behold him lie,
Only the painful sense of Being left,

-

A Spirit who must feel, and cannot die, Bleaching and bare beneath the polar sky.

XII.

THE SACRIFICE COMPLETED.

1.

O YE who, by the Lake

On Meru Mount, partake

The joys which Heaven hath destined for the blest! Swift, swift, the moments fly,

The silent hours go by,

And ye must leave your dear abode of rest.
O wretched Man, prepare

Again thy Curse to bear!

Prepare, O wretched Maid, for further woe!
The fatal hour draws near,

When Indra's heavenly sphere

Must own the Tyrant of the World below.
To-day the hundredth Steed

At Siva's shrine must bleed;
The dreadful sacrifice is full to-day;
Nor man nor God hath power,

At this momentous hour,
Again to save the Swerga from his sway.
Fresh woes, O Maid divine!

Fresh trials, must be thine;

And what must thou, Ladurlad, yet endure? But let your hearts be strong,

And rise against all wrong;

For Providence is just, and virtue is secure.