The Curse of Kehama, Volume the Second by Robert Southey

THE
CURSE OF KEHAMA.

XIII.
THE RETREAT.

{1}

Around her Father’s neck the Maiden lock’d
Her arms, when that portentous blow was given;
Clinging to him she heard the dread uproar,
And felt the shuddering shock which ran through Heaven.
Earth underneath them rock’d,
Her strong foundations heaving in commotion,
Such as wild winds upraise in raving Ocean,
As though the solid base were rent asunder.

{2}

And lo! where, storming the astonish’d sky,
Kehama and his evil host ascend!
Before them rolls the thunder,
Ten thousand thousand lightnings round them fly,
Upward the lengthening pageantries aspire,
Leaving from Earth to Heaven a widening wake of fire.

When the wild uproar was at length allay’d,
And Earth, recovering from the shock, was still,
Thus to her father spake the imploring Maid.
Oh! by the love which we so long have borne
Each other, and we ne’er shall cease to bear, . .
Oh! by the sufferings we have shar’d,
And must not cease to share, . .
One boon I supplicate in this dread hour,
One consolation in this hour of woe!
Thou hast it in thy power, refuse not thou
The only comfort now
That my poor heart can know.

O dearest, dearest Kailyal! with a smile
Of tenderness and sorrow, he replied,

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O best belov’d, and to be lov’d the best
Best worthy, . . set thy duteous heart at rest.
I know thy wish, and let what will betide,
Ne’er will I leave thee wilfully again.
My soul is strengthen’d to endure its pain;
Be thou, in all my wanderings, still my guide;
Be thou, in all my sufferings, at my side.

The Maiden, at those welcome words, imprest
A passionate kiss upon her father’s cheek:
They look’d around them, then, as if to seek
Where they should turn, North, South, or East or West,
Wherever to their vagrant feet seem’d best.
But, turning from the view her mournful eyes,
Oh, whither should we wander, Kailyal cries,
Or wherefore seek in vain a place of rest?
Have we not here the Earth beneath our tread,
Heaven overhead,
A brook that winds through this sequester’d glade,
And yonder woods, to yield us fruit and shade!
The little all our wants require is nigh;
Hope we have none, . . why travel on in fear?
We cannot fly from Fate, and Fate will find us here.

{4}

’Twas a fair scene wherein they stood,
A green and sunny glade amid the wood,
And in the midst an aged Banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,
For o’er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,
Straight like a plummet, grew towards the ground.
Some on the lower boughs, which crost their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung,
Others of younger growth, unmov’d, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern’s fretted height.
Beneath was smooth and fair to sight,
Nor weeds nor briars deform’d the natural floor,
And through the leafy cope which bower’d it o’er
Came gleams of checquered light.
So like a temple did it seem, that there
A pious heart’s first impulse would be prayer.

{5}

A brook, with easy current, murmured near;
Water so cool and clear
The peasants drink not from the humble well,
Which they with sacrifice of rural pride,
Have wedded to the cocoa-grove beside;
Nor tanks of costliest masonry dispense
To those in towns who dwell,
The work of Kings, in their beneficence.
Fed by perpetual springs, a small lagoon,
Pellucid, deep, and still, in silence join’d
And swell’d the passing stream. Like burnish’d steel
Glowing, it lay beneath the eye of noon;
And when the breezes, in their play,
Ruffled the darkening surface, then, with gleam
Of sudden light, around the lotus stem
It rippled, and the sacred flowers that crown
The lakelet with their roseate beauty, ride,
In gentlest waving rock’d, from side to side;
And as the wind upheaves
Their broad and buoyant weight, the glossy leaves
Flap on the twinkling waters, up and down.

They built them here a bower; of jointed cane,

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Strong for the needful use, and light and long
Was the slight frame-work rear’d, with little pain;
Lithe creepers, then, the wicker-sides supply,
And the tall jungle-grass fit roofing gave
Beneath that genial sky.
And here did Kailyal, each returning day,
Pour forth libations from the brook, to pay
The Spirits of her Sires their grateful rite;
In such libations pour’d in open glades,
Beside clear streams and solitary shades,
The Spirits of the virtuous dead delight.
And duly here, to Marriataly’s praise,
The Maid, as with an Angel’s voice of song,
Pour’d her melodious lays
Upon the gales of even,
And gliding in religious dance along,
Mov’d, graceful as the dark-eyed Nymphs of Heaven,
Such harmony to all her steps was given,

Thus ever, in her Father’s doting eye,
Kailyal perform’d the customary rite;
He, patient of his burning pain the while,
Beheld her, and approv’d her pious toil;
And sometimes, at the sight,

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A melancholy smile
Would gleam upon his awful countenance,
He, too, by day and night, and every hour,
Paid to a higher Power his sacrifice;
An offering, not of ghee, or fruit, or rice,
Flower-crown, or blood; but of a heart subdued,
A resolute, unconquer’d fortitude,
An agony represt, a will resign’d,
To her, who, on her secret throne reclin’d,
Amid the milky Sea, by Veeshnoo’s side,
Looks with an eye of mercy on mankind.
By the Preserver, with his power endued,
There Voomdavee beholds this lower clime,
And marks the silent sufferings of the good,
To recompense them in her own good time.

O force of faith! O strength of virtuous will!
Behold him, in his endless martyrdom,
Triumphant still!
The Curse still burning in his heart and brain,
And yet doth he remain
Patient the while, and tranquil, and content!
The pious soul hath fram’d unto itself

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A second nature, to exist in pain
As in its own allotted element.

10.

Such strength the will reveal’d had given
This holy pair, such influxes of grace,
That to their solitary resting place
They brought the peace of Heaven.
Yea all around was hallowed! Danger, Fear,
Nor thought of evil ever entered here.
A charm was on the Leopard when he came
Within the circle of that mystic glade;
Submiss he crouch’d before the heavenly maid,
And offered to her touch his speckled side;
Or with arch’d back erect, and bending head,
And eyes half-clos’d for pleasure, would he stand,
Courting the pressure of her gentle hand.

11.

Trampling his path through wood and brake,
And canes which crackling fall before his way,
And tassel-grass, whose silvery feathers play
O’ertopping the young trees,
On comes the Elephant, to slake

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His thirst at noon in yon pellucid springs.
Lo! from his trunk upturn’d, aloft he flings
The grateful shower; and now
Plucking the broad-leav’d bough
Of yonder plane, with waving motion slow,
Fanning the languid air,
He moves it to and fro.
But when that form of beauty meets his sight,
The trunk its undulating motion stops,
From his forgetful hold the plane-branch drops,
Reverent he kneels, and lifts his rational eyes
To her as if in prayer;
And when she pours her angel voice in song,
Entranced he listens to the thrilling notes,
Till his strong temples, bath’d with sudden dews,
Their fragrance of delight and love diffuse.

12.

Lo! as the voice melodious floats around,
The Antelope draws near,
The Tygress leaves her toothless cubs to hear,
The Snake comes gliding from the secret brake,
Himself in fascination forced along
By that enchanting song;

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The antic Monkies, whose wild gambols late,
When not a breeze wav’d the tall jungle-grass,
Shook the whole wood, are hush’d, and silently
Hang on the cluster’d trees.
All things in wonder and delight are still;
Only at times the Nightingale is heard,
Not that in emulous skill that sweetest bird
Her rival strain would try,
A mighty songster, with the Maid to vie;
She only bore her part in powerful sympathy.

13.

Well might they thus adore that heavenly Maid!
For never Nymph of Mountain,
Or Grove, or Lake, or Fountain,
With a diviner presence fill’d the shade.
No idle ornaments deface
Her natural grace,
Musk-spot, nor sandal-streak, nor scarlet stain,
Ear-drop nor chain, nor arm nor ankle-ring,
Nor trinketry on front, or neck, or breast,
Marring the perfect form: she seem’d a thing
Of Heaven’s prime uncorrupted work, a child
Of early Nature undefil’d,

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A daughter of the years of innocence.
And therefore all things lov’d her. When she stood
Beside the glassy pool, the fish, that flies
Quick as an arrow from all other eyes,
Hover’d to gaze on her. The mother bird,
When Kailyal’s steps she heard,
Sought not to tempt her from her secret nest,
But, hastening to the dear retreat, would fly
To meet and welcome her benignant eye.

14.

Hope we have none, said Kailyal to her Sire.
Said she aright? and had the Mortal Maid
No thoughts of heavenly aid, . .
No secret hopes her inmost heart to move
With longings of such deep and pure desire,
As vestal Maids, whose piety is love,
Feel in their extasies, when rapt above,
Their souls unto their heavenly Spouse aspire?
Why else so often doth that searching eye
Roam through the scope of sky?
Why, if she sees a distant speck on high,
Starts there that quick suffusion to her cheek?
’Tis but the Eagle, in his heavenly height;

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Reluctant to believe, she hears his cry,
And marks his wheeling flight,
Then languidly averts her mournful sight.
Why ever else, at morn, that waking sigh,
Because the lovely form no more is nigh
Which hath been present to her soul all night;
And that injurious fear
Which ever, as it riseth, is represt,
Yet riseth still within her troubled breast,
That she no more shall see the Glendoveer!

15.

Hath he forgotten me? The wrongful thought
Would stir within her, and, though still repell’d
With shame and self-reproaches, would recur.
Days after days unvarying come and go,
And neither friend nor foe
Approaches them in their sequestered bower.
Maid of strange destiny! but think not thou
Thou art forgotten now,
And hast no cause for farther hope or fear.
High-fated Maid, thou dost not know
What eyes watch over thee for weal and woe!
Even at this hour,

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Searching the dark decrees divine,
Kehama, in the fulness of his power,
Perceives his thread of fate entwin’d with thine.
The Glendoveer, from his far sphere,
With love that never sleeps, beholds thee here,
And, in the hour permitted, will be near.
Dark Lorrinite on thee hath fix’d her sight,
And laid her wiles, to aid
Foul Arvalan when he shall next appear;
For well she ween’d his Spirit would renew
Old vengeance now, with unremitting hate;
The Enchantress well that evil nature knew,
The accursed Spirit hath his prey in view,
And thus, while all their separate hopes pursue,
All work, unconsciously, the will of Fate.

16.

Fate work’d its own the while. A band
Of Yoguees, as they roam’d the land,
Seeking a spouse for Jaga-Naut their God,
Stray’d to this solitary glade,
And reach’d the bower wherein the Maid abode.
Wondering at form so fair, they deem’d the power
Divine had led them to his chosen bride,
And seiz’d and bore her from her father’s side.

XIV.
JAGA-NAUT.

Joy in the city of great Jaga-Naut!
Joy in the seven-headed Idol’s shrine!
A virgin-bride his ministers have brought,
A mortal maid, in form and face divine,
Peerless among all daughters of mankind;
Search’d they the world again from East to West,
In endless quest,
Seeking the fairest and the best,
No maid so lovely might they hope to find; . .
For she hath breath’d celestial air,
And heavenly food hath been her fare,
And heavenly thoughts and feelings give her face
That heavenly grace.

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Joy in the city of great Jaga-Naut,
Joy in the seven-headed Idol’s shrine!
The fairest Maid his Yoguees sought,
A fairer than the fairest have they brought,
A maid of charms surpassing human thought,
A maid divine.

Now bring ye forth the Chariot of the God!
Bring him abroad,
That through the swarming City he may ride;
And by his side
Place ye the Maid of more than mortal grace,
The Maid of perfect form and heavenly face!
Set her aloft in triumph, like a bride
Upon the bridal car,
And spread the joyful tidings wide and far, . .
Spread it with trump and voice
That all may hear, and all who hear rejoice, . .
The Mighty One hath found his mate! the God
Will ride abroad!
To-night will he go forth from his abode!
Ye myriads who adore him,
Prepare the way before him!

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Uprear’d on twenty wheels elate,
Huge as a Ship, the bridal car appear’d;
Loud creak its ponderous wheels, as through the gate
A thousand Bramins drag the enormous load.
There, thron’d aloft in state,
The image of the seven-headed God
Came forth from his abode; and at his side
Sate Kailyal like a bride;
A bridal statue rather might she seem,
For she regarded all things like a dream,
Having no thought, nor fear, nor will, nor aught
Save hope and faith, that liv’d within her still.

O silent Night, how have they startled thee
With the brazen trumpet’s blare!
And thou, O Moon! whose quiet light serene
Filleth wide heaven, and bathing hill and wood,
Spreads o’er the peaceful valley like a flood,
How have they dimm’d thee with the torches’ glare,
Which round yon moving pageant flame and flare,
As the wild rout, with deafening song and shout,
Fling their long flashes out,
That, like infernal lightnings, fire the air.

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A thousand pilgrims strain
Arm, shoulder, breast and thigh, with might and main,
To drag that sacred wain,
And scarce can draw along the enormous load.
Prone fall the frantic votaries in its road,
And, calling on the God,
Their self-devoted bodies there they lay
To pave his chariot-way.
On Jaga-Naut they call,
The ponderous Car rolls on, and crushes all.
Through blood and bones it ploughs its dreadful path.
Groans rise unheard; the dying cry,
And death and agony
Are trodden under foot by yon mad throng,
Who follow close, and thrust the deadly wheels along.

Pale grows the Maid at this accursed sight;
The yells which round her rise
Have rous’d her with affright,
And fear hath given to her dilated eyes
A wilder light.
Where shall those eyes be turn’d? she knows not where!

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Downward they dare not look, for there
Is death and horror, and despair;
Nor can her patient looks to Heaven repair,
For the huge Idol over her, in air,
Spreads his seven hideous heads, and wide
Extends their snaky necks on every side;
And all around, behind, before,
The bridal Car, is the raging rout,
With frantic shout, and deafening roar,
Tossing the torches’ flames about.
And the double double peals of the drum are there,
And the startling burst of the trumpet’s blare;
And the gong, that seems, with its thunders dread,
To stun the living, and waken the dead.
The ear-strings throb as if they were broke,
And the eye-lids drop at the weight of its stroke.
Fain would the Maid have kept them fast,
But open they start at the crack of the blast.

Where art thou, Son of Heaven, Ereenia! where
In this dread hour of horror and despair?
Thinking on him, she strove her fear to quell,
If he be near me, then will all be well;
And, if he reck not for my misery,

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Let come the worst, it matters not to me.
Repel that wrongful thought,
O Maid! thou feelest, but believ’st it not;
It is thine own imperfect nature’s fault
That lets one doubt of him arise within.
And this the Virgin knew; and, like a sin,
Repell’d the thought, and still believ’d him true;
And summoned up her spirit to endure
All forms of fear, in that firm trust secure.

She needs that faith, she needs that consolation,
For now the Car hath measured back its track
Of death, and hath re-entered now its station.
There, in the Temple-court, with song and dance,
A harlot-band, to meet the Maid, advance.
The drum hath ceas’d its peals; the trump and gong
Are still; the frantic crowd forbear their yells;
And sweet it was to hear the voice of song,
And the sweet music of their girdle-bells,
Armlets and anklets, that, with chearful sounds
Symphonious tinkled as they wheel’d around.

They sung a bridal measure,

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A song of pleasure,
A hymn of joyaunce and of gratulation.
Go, chosen One, they cried,
Go, happy bride!
For thee the God descends in expectation;
For thy dear sake
He leaves his heaven, O Maid of matchless charms.
Go, happy One, the bed divine partake,
And fill his longing arms!
Thus to the inner fane,
With circling dance and hymeneal strain,
The astonish’d Maid they led,
And there they laid her on the bridal bed.
Then forth they went, and clos’d the Temple-gate,
And left the wretched Kailyal to her fate.

10.

Where art thou, Son of Heaven, Ereenia, where?
From the loathed bed she starts, and in the air
Looks up, as if she thought to find him there!
Then, in despair,
Anguish and agony, and hopeless prayer,
Prostrate she laid herself upon the floor.
There, trembling as she lay,

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The Bramin of the fane advanced
And came to seize his prey.

11.

But as the Priest drew nigh,
A power invisible opposed his way;
Starting, he uttered wildly a death-cry,
And fell. At that the Maid all eagerly
Lifted in hope her head;
She thought her own deliverer had been near;
When lo! with other life re-animate,
She saw the dead arise,
And in the fiendish joy within his eyes,
She knew the hateful Spirit who look’d through
Their specular orbs, . . cloth’d in the flesh of man
She knew the accursed soul of Arvalan.

12.

But not in vain, with the sudden shriek of fear,
She calls Ereenia now; the Glendoveer
Is here! Upon the guilty sight he burst
Like lightning from a cloud, and caught the accurst,
Bore him to the roof aloft, and on the floor
With vengeance dash’d him, quivering there in gore.

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13.

Lo! from the pregnant air, . . heart-withering sight!
There issued forth the dreadful Lorrinite,
Seize him! the Enchantress cried;
A host of Demons at her word appear,
And like tornado winds, from every side
At once, they rush upon the Glendoveer.
Alone against a legion, little here
Avails his single might,
Nor that celestial faulchion, which in fight
So oft had put the rebel race to flight.
There are no Gods on earth to give him aid;
Hemm’d round, he is overpower’d, beat down, and bound,
And at the feet of Lorrinite is laid.

14.

Meantime the scattered members of the slain,
Obedient to her mighty voice, assum’d
Their vital form again,
And that foul Spirit, upon vengeance bent,
Fled to the fleshly tenement.
Lo! here, quoth Lorrinite, thou seest thy foe!
Him in the Ancient Sepulchres, below
The billows of the Ocean, will I lay;

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Gods are there none to help him now, and there
For Man there is no way.
To that dread scene of durance and despair,
Asuras, bear your enemy! I go
To chain him in the Tombs. Meantime do thou,
Freed from thy foe, and now secure from fear,
Son of Kehama, take thy pleasure here.

15.

Her words the accursed race obey’d;
Forth with a sound like rushing winds they fled,
And of all aid from Earth or Heaven bereft,
Alone with Arvalan the Maid was left.
But in that hour of agony, the Maid
Deserted not herself; her very dread
Had calm’d her; and her heart
Knew the whole horror, and its only part.
Yamen, receive me undefil’d! she said,
And seiz’d a torch, and fir’d the bridal bed.
Up ran the rapid flames; on every side
They find their fuel wheresoe’er they spread,
Thin hangings, fragrant gums, and odorous wood,
That pil’d like sacrificial altars stood.
Around they run, and upward they aspire,
And, lo! the huge Pagoda lin’d with fire.

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16.

The wicked Soul, who had assum’d again
A form of sensible flesh, for his foul will,
Still bent on base revenge, and baffled still,
Felt that corporeal shape alike to pain
Obnoxious as to pleasure; forth he flew,
Howling and scorch’d by the devouring flame;
Accursed Spirit! still condemn’d to rue,
The act of sin and punishment the same.
Freed from his loathsome touch, a natural dread
Came on the self-devoted, and she drew
Back from the flames, which now toward her spread,
And, like a living monster, seem’d to dart
Their hungry tongues toward their shrinking prey.
Soon she subdued her heart;
O Father! she exclaim’d, there was no way
But this! and thou, Ereenia, who for me
Sufferest, my soul shall bear thee company.

17.

So having said, she knit
Her body up to work her soul’s desire,
And rush at once amid the thickest fire.
A sudden cry withheld her, . . Kailyal, stay!

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Child! Daughter! I am here! the voice exclaims,
And from the gate, unharm’d, through smoke and flames
Like as a God, Ladurlad made his way;
Wrapt his preserving arms around, and bore
His Child, uninjur’d, o’er the burning floor.

XV.
THE CITY OF BALY.

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Kailyal.

Ereenia!

Ladurlad.

Nay, let no reproachful thought
Wrong his heroic heart! The Evil Powers
Have the dominion o’er this wretched World,
And no good Spirit now can venture here.

Kailyal.

Alas, my Father! he hath ventur’d here,
And sav’d me from one horror. But the Powers

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Of Evil beat him down, and bore away
To some dread scene of durance and despair,
The Ancient Tombs, methought their Mistress said,
Beneath the ocean-waves: no way for Man
Is there; and Gods, she boasted, there are none
On Earth to help him now.

Ladurlad.

Is that her boast?
And hath she laid him in the Ancient Tombs,
Relying that the Waves will guard him there?
Short-sighted are the eyes of Wickedness,
And all its craft but folly. O, my child!
The Curses of the Wicked are upon me,
And the immortal Deities, who see
And suffer all things for their own wise end,
Have made them blessings to us!

Kailyal.

Then thou knowest
Where they have borne him?

Ladurlad.

To the Sepulchres

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Of the Ancient Kings, which Baly, in his power,
Made in primeval times; and built above them
A City, like the Cities of the Gods,
Being like a God himself. For many an age
Hath Ocean warr’d against his Palaces,
Till overwhelm’d, they lie beneath the waves,
Not overthrown, so well the Mighty One
Had laid their deep foundations. Rightly said
The Accursed, that no way for Man was there,
But not like Man am I!

Up from the ground the Maid exultant sprung,
And clapp’d her happy hands, in attitude
Of thanks, to Heaven, and flung
Her arms around her Father’s neck, and stood
Struggling awhile for utterance, with excess
Of hope and pious thankfulness.
Come . . come! she cried, O let us not delay, . .
He is in torments there, . . away! . . away!

Long time they travell’d on; at dawn of day
Still setting forward with the earliest light,

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Nor ceasing from their way
Till darkness clos’d the night.
Short refuge from the noontide heat,
Reluctantly compell’d, the Maiden took;
And ill her indefatigable feet
Could that brief tarriance brook.
Hope kept her up, and her intense desire
Supports that heart which ne’er at danger quails,
Those feet which never tire,
That frame which never fails.

Their talk was of the City of the days
Of old, Earth’s wonder once; and of the fame
Of Baly its great founder, . . he whose name
In ancient story, and in poet’s praise,
Liveth and flourisheth for endless glory,
Because his might
Put down the wrong, and aye upheld the right.
Till for ambition, as old sages tell,
The mighty Monarch fell:
For he too, having made the World his own,
Then, in his pride, had driven
The Devetas from Heaven,

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And seiz’d triumphantly the Swerga throne.
The Incarnate came before the Mighty One,
In dwarfish stature, and in mien obscure;
The sacred cord he bore,
And ask’d, for Brama’s sake, a little boon,
Three steps of Baly’s ample reign, no more.
Poor was the boon requir’d, and poor was he
Who begg’d, . . a little wretch it seem’d to be;
But Baly ne’er refus’d a suppliant’s prayer.
A glance of pity, in contemptuous mood,
He on the Dwarf cast down,
And bade him take the boon,
And measure where he would.

Lo, Son of giant birth,
I take my grant! the Incarnate power replies.
With his first step he measur’d o’er the Earth,
The second spann’d the skies.
Three paces thou hast granted,
Twice have I set my footstep, Veeshnoo cries,
Where shall the third be planted?

Then Baly knew the God, and at his feet,

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In homage due, he laid his humbled head.
Mighty art thou, O Lord of Earth and Heaven,
Mighty art thou! he said,
Be merciful, and let me be forgiven.
He ask’d for mercy of the merciful,
And mercy for his virtue’s sake was shown.
For though he was cast down to Padalon,
Yet there, by Yamen’s throne,
Doth Baly sit in majesty and might,
To judge the dead, and sentence them aright.
And forasmuch as he was still the friend
Of righteousness, it is permitted him,
Yearly, from those drear regions to ascend,
And walk the Earth, that he may hear his name
Still hymn’d and honour’d, by the grateful voice
Of humankind, and in his fame rejoice.

Such was the talk they held upon their way,
Of him to whose old City they were bound;
And now, upon their journey, many a day
Had risen and clos’d, and many a week gone round,
And many a realm and region had they past,
When now the Ancient Towers appear’d at last.

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Their golden summits, in the noon-day light,
Shone o’er the dark-green deep that roll’d between;
For domes, and pinnacles, and spires were seen
Peering above the sea, . . a mournful sight!
Well might the sad beholder ween from thence
What works of wonder the devouring wave
Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave
Bore record of their old magnificence.
And on the sandy shore, beside the verge
Of Ocean, here and there, a rock-hewn fane
Resisted in its strength the surf and surge
That on their deep foundations beat in vain.
In solitude the Ancient Temples stood,
Once resonant with instrument and song,
And solemn dance of festive multitude;
Now as the weary ages pass along,
No voice they hear, save of the Ocean flood,
Which roars for ever on the restless shores;
Or, visiting their solitary caves,
The lonely sound of Winds, that moan around
Accordant to the melancholy waves.

With reverence did the travellers see

{33}

The works of ancient days, and silently
Approach the shore. Now on the yellow sand,
Where round their feet the rising surges part,
They stand. Ladurlad’s heart
Exulted in his wonderous destiny.
To Heaven he rais’d his hand
In attitude of stern heroic pride;
Oh what a power, he cried,
Thou dreadful Rajah, doth thy Curse impart!
I thank thee now! . . Then turning to the Maid,
Thou see’st how far and wide
Yon Towers extend, he said,
My search must needs be long. Meantime the flood
Will cast thee up thy food, . .
And in the Chambers of the Rock by night,
Take thou thy safe abode,
No prowling beast to harm thee, or affright,
Can enter there; but wrap thyself with care
From the foul Bird obscene that thirsts for blood;
For in such caverns doth the Bat delight
To have its haunts. Do thou with stone and shout,
Ere thou liest down at evening, scare them out,
And in this robe of mine involve thy feet.
Duly commend us both to Heaven in prayer,

{34}

Be of good heart, and let thy sleep be sweet.

So saying, he put back his arm, and gave
The cloth which girt his loins, and prest her hand
With fervent love, then down the sloping sand
Advanced into the sea: the coming Wave,
Which knew Kehama’s Curse, before his way
Started, and on he went as on dry land,
And still around his path the waters parted.
She stands upon the shore, where sea-weeds play,
Lashing her polish’d ankles, and the spray
Which off her Father, like a rainbow, fled,
Falls on her like a shower; there Kailyal stands,
And sees the billows rise above his head.
She, at the startling sight, forgot the power
The Curse had given him, and held forth her hands
Imploringly, . . . her voice was on the wind,
And the deaf Ocean o’er Ladurlad clos’d.
Soon she recall’d his destiny to mind,
And, shaking off that natural fear, compos’d
Her soul with prayer, to wait the event resign’d.

10.

Alone, upon the solitary strand,

{35}

The lovely one is left; behold her go,
Pacing with patient footsteps, to and fro,
Along the bending sand.
Save her, ye Gods! from Evil Powers, and here
From man she need not fear;
For never Traveller comes near
These awful ruins of the days of yore,
Nor fisher’s bark, nor venturous mariner,
Approach the sacred shore.
All day she walk’d the beach, at night she sought
The Chamber of the Rock; with stone and shout
Assail’d the Bats obscene, and scar’d them out;
Then in her Father’s robe involv’d her feet,
And wrapt her mantle round to guard her head,
And laid her down: the rock was Kailyal’s bed,
Her chamber-lamps were in the starry sky,
The winds and waters were her lullaby.

11.

Be of good heart, and let thy sleep be sweet,
Ladurlad said, . . Alas! that cannot be
To one whose days are days of misery.
How often did she stretch her hands to greet
Ereenia, rescued in the dreams of night!

{36}

How oft amid the vision of delight,
Fear in her heart all is not as it seems;
Then from unsettled slumber start, and hear
The Winds that moan above, the Waves below!
Thou hast been call’d, O Sleep! the friend of Woe,
But ’tis the happy who have call’d thee so.

12.

Another day, another night are gone,
A second passes, and a third wanes on.
So long she paced the shore,
So often on the beach she took her stand,
That the wild Sea-Birds knew her, and no more
Fled, when she past beside them on the strand.
Bright shine the golden summits in the light
Of the noon-sun, and lovelier far by night
Their moonlight glories o’er the sea they shed:
Fair is the dark-green deep; by night and day
Unvex’d with storms, the peaceful billows play,
As when they clos’d upon Ladurlad’s head:
The firmament above is bright and clear;
The sea-fowl, lords of water, air, and land,
Joyous alike upon the wing appear,
Or when they ride the waves, or walk the sand;

{37}

Beauty and light and joy are every-where;
There is no sadness and no sorrow here,
Save what that single human breast contains,
But oh! what hopes, and fears, and pains are there!

13.

Seven miserable days the expectant Maid,
From earliest dawn till evening, watch’d the shore;
Hope left her then; and in her heart she said,
Never shall I behold my Father more!

XVI.
THE ANCIENT SEPULCHRES.

{38}

When the broad Ocean on Ladurlad’s head
Had clos’d and arch’d him o’er,
With steady tread he held his way
Adown the sloping shore.
The dark-green waves, with emerald hue,
Imbue the beams of day,
And on the wrinkled sand below,
Rolling their mazy network to and fro,
Light shadows shift and play.
The hungry Shark, at scent of prey,
Toward Ladurlad darted;
Beholding then that human form erect,

{39}

How like a God the depths he trod,
Appall’d the monster started,
And in his fear departed.
Onward Ladurlad went with heart elate,
And now hath reach’d the Ancient City’s gate.

Wondering, he stood awhile to gaze
Upon the works of elder days.
The brazen portals open stood,
Even as the fearful multitude
Had left them, when they fled
Before the rising flood.
High over-head, sublime,
The mighty gateway’s storied roof was spread,
Dwarfing the puny piles of younger time.
With the deeds of days of yore
That ample roof was sculptur’d o’er,
And many a godlike form there met his eye,
And many an emblem dark of mystery.
Through these wide portals oft had Baly rode
Triumphant from his proud abode,
When, in his greatness, he bestrode
The Aullay, hugest of four-footed kind,

{40}

The Aullay-Horse, that in his force,
With elephantine trunk, could bind
And lift the elephant, and on the wind
Whirl him away, with sway and swing,
Even like a pebble from the practis’d sling.

Those streets which never, since the days of yore,
By human footstep had been visited;
Those streets; which never more
A human foot shall tread,
Ladurlad trod. In sun-light, and sea-green,
The thousand palaces were seen
Of that proud city, whose superb abodes
Seem’d rear’d by Giants for the immortal Gods.
How silent and how beautiful they stand,
Like things of Nature! the eternal rocks
Themselves not firmer. Neither hath the sand
Drifted within their gates, and choak’d their doors,
Nor slime defil’d their pavements and their floors.
Did then the Ocean wage
His war for love and envy, not in rage,
O thou fair City, that he spares thee thus?
Art thou Varounin’s capital and court,

{41}

Where all the Sea-Gods for delight resort,
A place too godlike to be held by us,
The poor degenerate children of the Earth?
So thought Ladurlad, as he look’d around,
Weening to hear the sound
Of Mermaid’s shell, and song
Of choral throng from some imperial hall,
Wherein the Immortal Powers, at festival,
Their high carousals keep.
But all is silence dread,
Silence profound and dead,
The everlasting stillness of the Deep.

Through many a solitary street,
And silent market-place, and lonely square,
Arm’d with the mighty Curse, behold him fare.
And now his feet attain that royal fane
Where Baly held of old his awful reign.
What once had been the Garden spread around,
Fair Gardens, once which wore perpetual green,
Where all sweet flowers through all the year were found,
And all fair fruits were through all seasons seen;
A place of Paradise, where each device

{42}

Of emulous Art with Nature strove to vie;
And Nature, on her part,
Call’d forth new powers wherewith to vanquish Art.
The Swerga-God himself, with envious eye,
Survey’d those peerless gardens in their prime;
Nor ever did the Lord of Light,
Who circles Earth and Heaven upon his way,
Behold from eldest time a goodlier sight
Than were the groves which Baly, in his might,
Made for his chosen place of solace and delight.

It was a Garden still beyond all price,
Even yet it was a place of Paradise;
For where the mighty Ocean could not spare,
There had he, with his own creation,
Sought to repair his work of devastation.
And here were coral bowers,
And grots of madrepores,
And banks of spunge, as soft and fair to eye
As e’er was mossy bed
Whereon the Wood Nymphs lie
With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.
Here, too, were living flowers

{43}

Which, like a bud compacted,
Their purple cups contracted,
And now in open blossom spread,
Stretch’d like green anthers many a seeking head.
And arborets of jointed stone were there,
And plants of fibres fine, as silkworm’s thread;
Yea, beautiful as Mermaid’s golden hair
Upon the waves dispread:
Others that, like the broad banana growing,
Rais’d their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue,
Like streamers wide out-flowing.
And whatsoe’er the depths of Ocean hide
From human eyes, Ladurlad there espied,
Trees of the deep, and shrubs and fruits and flowers,
As fair as ours,
Wherewith the Sea-Nymphs love their locks to braid,
When to their father’s hall, at festival
Repairing, they, in emulous array,
Their charms display,
To grace the banquet, and the solemn day.

The golden fountains had not ceas’d to flow,
And, where they mingled with the briny Sea,

{44}

There was a sight of wonder and delight,
To see the fish, like birds in air,
Above Ladurlad flying.
Round those strange waters they repair,
Their scarlet fins outspread and plying,
They float with gentle hovering there;
And now upon those little wings,
As if to dare forbidden things,
With wilful purpose bent,
Swift as an arrow from a bow
They dash across, and to and fro,
In rapid glance, like lightning go
Through that unwonted element.
Almost in scenes so wonderous fair,
Ladurlad had forgot
The mighty cause which led him there;
His busy eye was every where,
His mind had lost all thought;
His heart, surrendered to the joys
Of sight, was happy as a boy’s.
But soon the awakening thought recurs
Of him who, in the Sepulchres,
Hopeless of human aid, in chains is laid;
And her who, on the solitary shore,

{45}

By night and day her weary watch will keep,
Till she shall see them issuing from the deep.

Now hath Ladurlad reach’d the Court
Of the great Palace of the King; its floor
Was of the marble rock; and there before
The imperial door,
A mighty Image on the steps was seen,
Of stature huge, of countenance serene.
A crown and sceptre at his feet were laid;
One hand a scroll display’d,
The other pointed there, that all might see;
My name is Death, it said,
In mercy have the Gods appointed me.
Two brazen gates beneath him, night and day
Stood open; and within them you behold
Descending steps, which in the living stone
Were hewn, a spacious way
Down to the Chambers of the Kings of old.

Trembling with hope, the adventurous man descended
The sea-green light of day

{46}

Not far along the vault extended;
But where the slant reflection ended,
Another light was seen
Of red and fiery hue,
That with the water blended,
And gave the secrets of the Tombs to view.

Deep in the marble rock, the Hall
Of Death was hollowed out, a chamber wide,
Low-roof’d, and long; on either side,
Each in his own alcove, and on his throne,
The Kings of old were seated: in his hand
Each held the sceptre of command,
From whence, across that scene of endless night,
A carbuncle diffused its everlasting light.

10.

So well had the embalmers done their part
With spice and precious unguents, to imbue
The perfect corpse, that each had still the hue
Of living man, and every limb was still
Supple and firm and full, as when of yore
Its motion answered to the moving will.

{47}

The robes of royalty which once they wore,
Long since had mouldered off and left them bare:
Naked upon their thrones behold them there,
Statues of actual flesh, . . a fearful sight!
Their large and rayless eyes
Dimly reflecting to that gem-born light,
Glaz’d, fix’d, and meaningless, . . . yet, open wide,
Their ghastly balls belied
The mockery of life in all beside.

11.

But if, amid these Chambers drear,
Death were a sight of shuddering and of fear,
Life was a thing of stranger horror here.
For at the farther end, in yon alcove,
Where Baly should have lain, had he obey’d
Man’s common lot, behold Ereenia laid.
Strong fetters link him to the rock; his eye
Now rolls and widens, as with effort vain
He strives to break the chain,
Now seems to brood upon his misery.
Before him couch’d there lay
One of the mighty monsters of the deep,
Whom Lorrinite encountering on the way,

{48}

There station’d, his perpetual guard to keep;
In the sport of wanton power, she charm’d him there,
As if to mock the Glendoveer’s despair.
Upward his form was human, save that here
The skin was cover’d o’er with scale on scale
Compact, a panoply of natural mail.
His mouth, from ear to ear,
Weapon’d with triple teeth, extended wide,
And tusks on either side;
A double snake below, he roll’d
His supple lengths behind in many a sinuous fold.

12.

With red and kindling eye, the Beast beholds
A living man draw nigh,
And, rising on his folds,
In hungry joy awaits the expected feast,
His mouth half-open, and his teeth unsheath’d.
Then on he sprung, and in his scaly arms
Seiz’d him, and fasten’d on his neck, to suck,
With greedy lips, the warm life-blood: and sure
But for the mighty power of magic charms,
As easily as, in the blithesome hour
Of spring, a child doth crop the meadow flower,

{49}

Piecemeal those claws
Had rent their victim, and those armed jaws
Snapt him in twain. Naked Ladurlad stood,
Yet fearless and unharm’d in this dread strife,
So well Kehama’s Curse had charm’d his fated life.

13.

He too, . . . for anger, rising at the sight
Of him he sought, in such strange thrall confin’d.
With desperate courage fir’d Ladurlad’s mind, . . .
He, too, unto the fight himself addrest,
And grappling breast to breast,
With foot firm-planted stands,
And seiz’d the monster’s throat with both his hands.
Vainly, with throttling grasp, he prest
The impenetrable scales;
And lo! the guard rose up, and round his foe,
With gliding motion, wreath’d his lengthening coils,
Then tighten’d all their folds with stress and strain.
Nought would the raging Tyger’s strength avail
If once involv’d within those mighty toils;
The arm’d Rhinoceros, so clasp’d, in vain
Had trusted to his hide of rugged mail,
His bones all broken, and the breath of life

{50}

Crush’d from the lungs, in that unequal strife.
Again, and yet again, he sought to break
The impassive limbs; but when the monster found
His utmost power was vain,
A moment he relax’d in every round,
Then knit his coils again with closer strain,
And, bearing forward, forced him to the ground.

14.

Ereenia groan’d in anguish at the sight
Of this dread fight: once more the Glendoveer
Essay’d to break his bonds, and fear
For that brave spirit who had sought him here,
Stung him to wilder strugglings. From the rock
He rais’d himself half up, . . with might and main
Pluck’d at the adamantine chain;
And now, with long and unrelaxing strain,
In obstinate effort of indignant strength,
Labour’d and strove in vain;
Till his immortal sinews fail’d at length;
And yielding, with an inward groan, to fate,
Despairingly, he let himself again
Fall prostrate on his prison-bed of stone,
Body and chain alike with lifeless weight.

{51}

15.

Struggling they lay in mortal fray
All day, while day was in our upper sphere,
For light of day,
And natural darkness never entered here;
All night, with unabated might,
They waged the unremitting fight.
A second day, a second night,
With furious will they wrestled still.
The third came on, the fourth is gone;
Another comes, another goes,
And yet no respite, no repose;
But day and night, and night and day,
Involv’d in mortal strife they lay;
Six days and nights have past away,
And still they wage, with mutual rage,
The unremitting fray.
With mutual rage their war they wage,
But not with mutual will;
For when the seventh morning came,
The monster’s worn and wearied frame
In this strange contest fails;
And weaker, weaker, every hour
He yields beneath strong Nature’s power,

{52}

For now the Curse prevails.

16.

Sometimes the Beast sprung up to bear
His foe aloft; and, trusting there
To shake him from his hold,
Relax’d the rings that wreath’d him round;
But on his throat Ladurlad hung,
And weigh’d him to the ground;
And if they sink, or if they float,
Alike with stubborn clasp he clung,
Tenacious of his grasp;
For well he knew with what a power,
Exempt from Nature’s laws,
The Curse had arm’d him for this hour;
And in the monster’s gasping jaws,
And in his hollow eye,
Well could Ladurlad now descry
The certain signs of victory.

17.

And now the guard no more can keep
His painful watch; his eyes, opprest,
Are fainting for their natural sleep;

{53}

His living flesh and blood must rest,
The Beast must sleep or die.
Then he, full faint and languidly,
Unwreathes his rings and strives to fly,
And still retreating, slowly trails
His stiff and heavy length of scales.
But that unweariable foe,
With will relentless, follows still;
No breathing time, no pause of fight
He gives, but presses on his flight;
Along the vaulted chambers, and the ascent
Up to the emerald-tinted light of day,
He harasses his way,
Till lifeless, underneath his grasp,
The huge Sea-Monster lay.

18.

That obstinate work is done! Ladurlad cried,
One labour yet remains!
And thoughtfully he eyed
Ereenia’s ponderous chains;
And with vain effort, half-despairing, tried
The rivets deep in-driven. Instinctively,
As if in search of aid, he look’d around:

{54}

Oh, then, how gladly, in the near alcove,
Fallen on the ground its lifeless Lord beside,
The crescent scymitar he spied,
Whose cloudy blade, with potent spells imbued,
Had lain so many an age unhurt in solitude.

19.

Joyfully springing there
He seiz’d the weapon, and with eager stroke
Hew’d at the chain; the force was dealt in vain,
For not as if through yielding air
Past the descending scymitar,
Its deaden’d way the heavy water broke;
Yet it bit deep. Again, with both his hands,
He wields the blade, and dealt a surer blow.
The baser metal yields
To that fine edge, and lo! the Glendoveer
Rises and snaps the half-sever’d links, and stands
Freed from his broken bands.

XVII.
BALY.

{55}

This is the appointed night,
The night of joy and consecrated mirth,
When, from his judgement-seat in Padalon,
By Yamen’s throne,
Baly goes forth, that he may walk the Earth
Unseen, and hear his name
Still hymn’d and honour’d by the grateful voice
Of humankind, and in his fame rejoice.
Therefore from door to door, and street to street,
With willing feet,
Shaking their firebrands, the glad children run;

{56}

Baly! great Baly! they acclaim,
Where’er they run they bear the mighty name;
Where’er they meet,
Baly! great Baly! still their choral tongues repeat.
Therefore at every door the votive flame
Through pendant lanthorns sheds its painted light,
And rockets hissing upward through the sky,
Fall like a shower of stars
From Heaven’s black canopy.
Therefore, on yonder mountain’s templed height,
The brazen cauldron blazes through the night.
Huge as a Ship that travels the main sea
Is that capacious brass; its wick as tall
As is the mast of some great admiral.
Ten thousand votaries bring
Camphor and ghee to feed the sacred flame;
And while, through regions round, the nations see
Its fiery pillar curling high in heaven,
Baly! great Baly! they exclaim,
For ever hallowed be his blessed name!
Honour and praise to him for ever more be given!

Why art not thou among the festive throng,

{57}

Baly, O Mighty One! to hear thy fame?
Still as of yore, with pageantry and song
The glowing streets along,
They celebrate thy name;
Baly! great Baly! still
The grateful habitants of Earth acclaim,
Baly! great Baly! still
The ringing walls and echoing towers proclaim.
From yonder mountain the portentous flame
Still blazes to the nations as before;
All things appear to human eyes the same,
As perfect as of yore;
To human eyes, . . but how unlike to thine!
Thine which were wont to see
The Company divine,
That with their presence came to honour thee!
For all the blessed ones of mortal birth
Who have been cloth’d with immortality,
From the eight corners of the Earth,
From the Seven Worlds assembling, all
Wont to attend thy solemn festival.
Then did thine eyes behold
The wide air peopled with that glorious train,
Now may’st thou seek the blessed ones in vain,

{58}

For Earth and Air are now beneath the Rajah’s reign.

Therefore the Mighty One hath walk’d the Earth
In sorrow and in solitude to-night.
The sound of human mirth
To him is no delight;
He turns away from that ungrateful sight,
Hallowed not now by visitants divine,
And there he bends his melancholy way
Where, in yon full-orb’d Moon’s refulgent light,
The Golden Towers of his old City shine
Above the silver sea. The mighty Chief
There bent his way in grief,
As if sad thoughts indulged would work their own relief.

There he beholds upon the sand
A lovely Maiden in the moonlight stand.
The land-breeze lifts her locks of jet,
The waves around her polish’d ancles play,
Her bosom with the salt sea-spray is wet;
Her arms are crost, unconsciously, to fold
That bosom from the cold,

{59}

While statue-like she seems her watch to keep,
Gazing intently on the restless deep.

Seven miserable days had Kailyal there,
From earliest dawn till evening, watch’d the deep;
Six nights within the chamber of the rock,
Had laid her down, and found in prayer
That comfort which she sought in vain from sleep.
But when the seventh night came,
Never should she behold her Father more,
The wretched Maiden said in her despair;
Yet would not quit the shore,
Nor turn her eyes one moment from the sea:
Never before
Had Kailyal watch’d it so impatiently,
Never so eagerly had hop’d before,
As now when she believ’d, and said, all hope was o’er.

Beholding her, how beautiful she stood,
In that wild solitude,
Baly from his invisibility
Had issued then, to know her cause of woe;

{60}

But that, in the air beside her, he espied
Two Powers of Evil for her hurt allied,
Foul Arvalan and dreadful Lorrinite.
The Mighty One they could not see,
And marking with what demon-like delight
They kept their innocent prey in sight,
He waits, expecting what the end may be.

She starts; for lo! where floating many a rood,
A Monster, hugest of the Ocean brood,
Weltering and lifeless, drifts toward the shore.
Backward she starts in fear before the flood,
And, when the waves retreat,
They leave their hideous burthen at her feet.

She ventures to approach with timid tread,
She starts, and half draws back in fear,
Then stops, and stretches on her head,
To see if that huge beast indeed be dead.
Now growing bold, the Maid advances near,
Even to the margin of the ocean-flood.
Rightly she reads her Father’s victory,

{61}

And lifts her joyous hands, exultingly,
To Heaven in gratitude.
Then spreading them toward the Sea,
While pious tears bedim her streaming eyes,
Come! come! my Father, come to me!
Ereenia, come! she cries.
Lo! from the opening deep they rise,
And to Ladurlad’s arms the happy Kailyal flies.

She turn’d from him, to meet, with beating heart,
The Glendoveer’s embrace.
Now turn to me, for mine thou art!
Foul Arvalan exdaim’d; his loathsome face
Came forth, and from the air,
In fleshly form, he burst.
Always in horror and despair,
Had Kailyal seen that form and face accurst,
But yet so sharp a pang had ne’er
Shot with a thrill like death through all her frame,
As now when on her hour of joy the Spectre came.

10.

Vain is resistance now,

{62}

The fiendish laugh of Lorrinite is heard;
And, at her dreadful word,
The Asuras once again appear,
And seize Ladurlad and the Glendoveer.

11.

Hold your accursed hands!
A Voice exclaim’d, whose dread commands
Were fear’d 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 seiz’d the Sorceress; maugre all her charms,
Her and her fiendish ministers he caught
With force as uncontroulable 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

{63}

That mightier Power; with irresistible feet
He stampt and cleft the Earth; it opened wide,
And gave him way to his own judgement-seat.
Down, like a plummet, to the World below
He sunk, and bore his prey
To righteous punishment, and endless woe.

XVIII.
KEHAMA’S DESCENT.

{64}

The Earth, by Baly’s feet divided,
Clos’d o’er his way as to the judgement-seat
He plunged and bore his prey.
Scarce had the shock subsided,
When, darting from the Swerga’s heavenly heights,
Kehama, like a thunderbolt, alights.
In wrath he came, a bickering flame
Flash’d 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;

{65}

Earth trembled underneath the dreadful stroke,
Again in sunder riven;
He hurl’d in rage his whirling weapon down.
But lo! the fiery sheckra to his feet
Return’d, as if by equal force re-driven,
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.

Fool that he is! . . in torments let him lie!
Kehama, wrathful at his son, replied.
But what am I
That thou should’st 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.

{66}

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 relax’d, survey’d,
Thoughtful and silently, the mortal Maid.
Her eye the while was on the farthest sky,
Where up the etherial height
Ereenia rose and past away from sight.
Never had she so joyfully
Beheld the coming of the Glendoveer,
Dear as he was and he deserv’d 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?

Meantime the Almighty Rajah, late
In power and majesty and wrath array’d,
Had laid his terrors by
And gaz’d upon the Maid.
Pride could not quit his eye,

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Nor that remorseless nature from his front
Depart; yet whoso had beheld him then
Had felt some admiration mix’d with dread,
And might have said
That sure he seem’d to be the King of Men;
Less than the greatest that he could not be,
Who carried in his port such might and majesty.

In fear no longer for the Glendoveer,
Now toward the Rajah Kailyal turn’d 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 seem’d to see the change
Of purport in that all-commanding brow,
That thoughtfully was bent upon her now.
Wondering she gaz’d, the while her Father’s eye
Was fix’d upon Kehama haughtily;
It spake defiance to him, high disdain,
Stern patience, unsubduable by pain,
And pride triumphant over agony.

Ladurlad, said the Rajah, thou and I

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Alike have done the work of Destiny,
Unknowing each to what the impulse tended;
But now that over Earth and Heaven my reign
Is stablish’d, 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 up-fled,
As if he felt through every failing limb
The power and sense of life forsaking him.

Then turning to the Maid, the Rajah cried,
O Virgin, above all of mortal birth
Favour’d 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

{69}

Infinity may hide . . . For I can see
The writing which, at thy nativity,
All-knowing Nature wrought upon thy brain,
In branching veins, which to the gifted eye
Map out the mazes of futurity.
There is it written, Maid, that thou and I,
Alone of human kind a deathless pair,
Are doom’d to share
The Amreeta-drink divine
Of immortality. Come, Maiden mine!
High-fated One, ascend the subject sky,
And by Kehama’s side
Sit on the Swerga throne, his equal bride.

Oh never, . . never . . Father! Kailyal cried;
It is not as he saith, . . it cannot be!
I! . . I, his bride!
Nature is never false; he wrongeth her!
My heart belies such lines of destiny.
There is no other true interpreter!

At that reply Kehama’s darkening brow

{70}

Bewray’d the anger which he yet supprest.
Counsel thy daughter; tell her thou art now
Free from thy Curse, he said, and bid her bow
In thankfulness to Fate’s benign behest.
Bid her her stubborn will restrain,
For Destiny at last must be obey’d,
And tell her, while obedience is delay’d,
Thy Curse will burn again.

10.

She needeth not my counsel, he replied,
And idly, Rajah, dost thou reason thus
Of Destiny! for though all other things
Were subject to the starry influencings,
And bow’d submissive to thy tyranny,
The virtuous heart, and resolute will are free.
Thus in their wisdom did the Gods decree
When they created man. Let come what will,
This is our rock of strength; in every ill,
Sorrow, oppression, pain and agony,
The spirit of the good is unsubdued,
And, suffer as they may, they triumph still.

11.

Obstinate fools! exclaim’d the Mighty One,

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Fate and my pleasure must be done,
And ye resist in vain!
Take your fit guerdon till we meet again!
So saying, his vindictive hand he flung
Towards them, fill’d with curses; then on high
Aloft he sprung, and vanish’d through the Sky.

XIX.
MOUNT CALASAY.

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The Rajah, scattering curses as he rose,
Soar’d to the Swerga, and resum’d his throne.
Not for his own redoubled agony,
Which now through heart and brain,
With renovated pain,
Rush’d to its seat, Ladurlad breathes that groan,
That groan is for his child; he groan’d to see
The lovely one defil’d with leprosy,
Which, as the enemy vindictive fled,
O’er all her frame with quick contagion spread.
She, wondering at events so passing strange,

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And fill’d with hope and fear,
And joy to see the Tyrant disappear,
And glad expectance of her Glendoveer,
Perceiv’d not in herself the hideous change.
His burning pain, she thought, had forced the groan
Her father breath’d; his agonies alone
Were present to her mind; she claspt his knees,
Wept for his Curse, and did not feel her own.

Nor when she saw her plague, did her good heart,
True to itself, even for a moment fail.
Ha, Rajah! with disdainful smile she cries,
Mighty and wise and wicked as thou art,
Still thy blind vengeance acts a friendly part.
Shall I not thank thee for this scurf and scale
Of dire deformity, whose loathsomeness,
Surer than panoply of strongest mail,
Arms me against all foes? Oh, better so,
Better such foul disgrace,
Than that this innocent face
Should tempt thy wooing! That I need not dread;
Nor ever impious foe
Will offer outrage now, nor farther woe

{74}

Will beauty draw on my unhappy head;
Safe through the unholy world may Kailyal go.

Her face in virtuous pride
Was lifted to the skies,
As him and his poor vengeance she defied;
But earthward, when she ceas’d, she turn’d her eyes,
As if she sought to hide
The tear which in her own despite would rise.
Did then the thought of her own Glendoveer
Call forth that natural tear?
Was it a woman’s fear,
A thought of earthly love, which troubled her?
Like yon thin cloud amid the moonlight sky
That flits before the wind
And leaves no trace behind,
The womanly pang past over Kailyal’s mind.
This is a loathsome sight to human eye,
Half-shrinking at herself, the Maiden thought,
Will it be so to him? Oh surely not!
The immortal Powers, who see
Through the poor wrappings of mortality,
Behold the soul, the beautiful soul, within,

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Exempt from age and wasting malady,
And undeform’d, while pure and free from sin.
This is a loathsome sight to human eye,
But not to eyes divine,
Ereenia, Son of Heaven, oh not to thine!

The wrongful thought of fear, the womanly pain
Had past away, her heart was calm again.
She rais’d her head, expecting now to see
The Glendoveer appear;
Where hath he fled, quoth she,
That he should tarry now? Oh had she known
Whither the adventurous Son of Heaven was flown,
Strong as her spirit was, it had not borne
The awful thought, nor dar’d to hope for his return.

For he in search of Seeva’s throne was gone,
To tell his tale of wrong;
In search of Seeva’s own abode
The daring one began his heavenly road.
O wild emprize! above the farthest skies
He hop’d to rise!

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Him who is thron’d beyond the reach of thought,
The Alone, the Inaccessible, he sought.
O wild emprize! for when in days of yore,
For proud pre-eminence of power,
Brama and Veeshnoo, wild with rage, contended,
And Seeva, in his might,
Their dread contention ended;
Before their sight
In form a fiery column did he tower,
Whose head above the highest height extended,
Whose base below the deepest depth descended.
Downward, its depth to sound,
Veeshnoo a thousand years explor’d
The fathomless profound,
And yet no base he found:
Upward, to reach its head,
Ten myriad years the aspiring Brama soar’d,
And still, as up he fled,
Above him still the Immeasurable spread.
The rivals own’d their lord,
And trembled and ador’d.
How shall the Glendoveer attain
What Brama and what Veeshnoo sought in vain?

{77}

Ne’er did such thought of lofty daring enter
Celestial Spirit’s mind. O wild adventure
That throne to find, for he must leave behind
This World, that in the centre,
Within its salt-sea girdle, lies confin’d;
Yea the Seven Earths that, each with its own ocean,
Ring clasping ring, compose the mighty round.
What power of motion,
In less than endless years shall bear him there,
Along the limitless extent,
To the utmost bound of the remotest spheres?
What strength of wing
Suffice to pierce the Golden Firmament
That closes all within?
Yet he hath past the measureless extent,
And pierced the Golden Firmament;
For Faith hath given him power, and Space and Time
Vanish before that energy sublime.
Nor doth Eternal Night,
And outer Darkness, check his resolute flight;
By strong desire through all he makes his way,
Till Seeva’s Seat appears, . . behold Mount Calasay!

{78}

Behold the Silver Mountain! round about
Seven ladders stand, so high, the aching eye,
Seeking their tops in vain amid the sky,
Might deem they led from earth to highest heaven.
Ages would pass away,
And Worlds with age decay,
Ere one whose patient feet from ring to ring
Must win their upward way,
Could reach the summit of Mount Calasay.
But that strong power that nerv’d his wing,
That all-surmounting will,
Intensity of faith and holiest love,
Sustain’d Ereenia still,
And he hath gain’d the plain, the sanctuary above.

Lo, there the Silver Bell,
That, self-sustain’d, hangs buoyant in the air!
Lo! the broad Table there, too bright
For mortal sight,
From whose four sides the bordering gems unite
Their harmonizing rays,
In one mid fount of many-colour’d light.

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The stream of splendour, flashing as it flows,
Plays round, and feeds the stem of yon celestial Rose.
Where is the Sage whose wisdom can declare
The hidden things of that mysterious flower,
That flower which serves all mysteries to bear?
The sacred triangle is there,
Holding the Emblem which no tongue may tell.
Is this the Heaven of Heavens, where Seeva’s self doth dwell?

Here first the Glendoveer
Felt his wing flag, and paus’d upon his flight.
Was it that fear came over him, when here
He saw the imagin’d throne appear?
Not so, for his immortal sight
Endur’d the Table’s light;
Distinctly he beheld all things around,
And doubt and wonder rose within his mind
That this was all he found.
Howbeit he lifted up his voice and spake.
There is oppression in the World below;
Earth groans beneath the yoke; yea, in her woe,
She asks if the Avenger’s eye is blind?
Awake, O Lord, awake!

{80}

Too long thy vengeance sleepeth. Holy One!
Put thou thy terrors on for mercy’s sake,
And strike the blow, in justice to mankind!

10.

So as he pray’d, intenser faith he felt,
His spirit seem’d to melt
With ardent yearnings of increasing love;
Upward he turn’d his eyes
As if there should be something yet above;
Let me not, Seeva! seek in vain! he cries,
Thou art not here, . . for how should these contain thee?
Thou art not here, . . for how should I sustain thee?
But thou, where’er thou art,
Canst hear the voice of prayer,
Canst hear the humble heart.
Thy dwelling who can tell,
Or who, O Lord, hath seen thy secret throne?
But thou art not alone,
Not unapproachable!
O all-containing Mind,
Thou who art every where,
Whom all who seek shall find,
Hear me, O Seeva! hear the suppliant’s prayer!

{81}

11.

So saying, up he sprung,
And struck the Bell, which self-suspended, hung
Before the mystic Rose.
From side to side the silver tongue
Melodious swung, and far and wide
Soul-thrilling tones of heavenly music rung.
Abash’d, confounded,
It left the Glendoveer; . . yea all astounded
In overpowering fear and deep dismay;
For when that Bell had sounded,
The Rose, with all the mysteries it surrounded,
The Bell, the Table, and Mount Calasay,
The holy Hill itself, with all thereon,
Even as a morning dream before the day
Dissolves away, they faded and were gone.

12.

Where shall he rest his wing, where turn for flight,
For all around is Light,
Primal, essential, all-pervading Light!
Heart cannot think, nor tongue declare,
Nor eyes of Angel bear
That Glory unimaginably bright;

{82}

The Sun himself had seem’d
A speck of darkness there,
Amid that Light of Light!

13.

Down fell the Glendoveer,
Down through all regions, to our mundane sphere
He fell; but in his ear
A voice, which from within him came, was heard,
The indubitable word
Of Him to whom all secret things are known:
Go, ye who suffer, go to Yamen’s throne.
He hath the remedy for every woe;
He setteth right whate’er is wrong below.

XX.
THE EMBARKATION.

{83}

Down from the Heaven of Heavens Ereenia fell
Precipitate, yet imperceptible
His fall, nor had he cause nor thought of fear;
And when he came within this mundane sphere,
And felt that Earth was near,
The Glendoveer his azure wings expanded,
And, sloping down the sky
Toward the spot from whence he sprung on high,
There on the shore he landed.

Kailyal advanced to meet him,

{84}

Not moving now as she was wont to greet him;
Joy in her eye and in her eager pace;
With a calm smile of melancholy pride
She met him now, and, turning half aside,
Her warning hand repell’d the dear embrace.
Strange things, Ereenia, have befallen us here,
The Virgin said; the Almighty Man hath read
The lines which, traced by Nature on my brain,
There to the gifted eye
Make all my fortunes plain,
Mapping the mazes of futurity.
He sued for peace, for it is written there
That I with him the Amreeta cup must share;
Wherefore he bade me come, and by his side
Sit on the Swerga-throne, his equal bride.
I need not tell thee what reply was given;
My heart, the sure interpreter of Heaven,
His impious words belied.
Thou seest his poor revenge! So having said,
One look she glanced upon her leprous stain
Indignantly, and shook
Her head in calm disdain.

O Maid of soul divine!

{85}

O more than ever dear,
And more than ever mine,
Replied the Glendoveer;
He hath not read, be sure, the mystic ways
Of Fate; almighty as he is, that maze
Hath mock’d his fallible sight.
Said he the Amreeta-cup? So far aright
The Evil One may see; for Fate displays
Her hidden things in part, and part conceals,
Baffling the wicked eye
Alike with what she hides, and what reveals,
When with unholy purpose it would pry
Into the secrets of futurity.
So may it be permitted him to see
Dimly the inscrutable decree;
For to the world below,
Where Yamen guards the Amreeta, we must go;
Thus Seeva hath exprest his will, even he
The Holiest hath ordain’d it; there, he saith,
All wrongs shall be redrest
By Yamen, by the righteous Power of Death.

Forthwith the Father and the fated Maid,

{86}

And that heroic Spirit, who for them
Such flight had late essay’d,
The will of Heaven obey’d.
They went their way along the road
That leads to Yamen’s dread abode.

Many a day hath past away
Since they began their arduous way,
Their way of toil and pain;
And now their weary feet attain
The Earth’s remotest bound
Where outer Ocean girds it round.
But not like other Oceans this,
Rather it seem’d a drear abyss,
Upon whose brink they stood.
Oh, scene of fear! the travellers hear
The raging of the flood;
They hear how fearfully it roars,
But clouds of darker shade than night
For ever hovering round those shores,
Hide all things from their sight.
The Sun upon that darkness pours
His unavailing light;

{87}

Nor ever Moon nor Stars display,
Through the thick shade, one guiding ray
To shew the perils of the way.

There, in a creek, a vessel lay.
Just on the confines of the day,
It rode at anchor in its bay,
These venturous pilgrims to convey
Across that outer Sea.
Strange vessel sure it seem’d to be,
And all unfit for such wild sea!
For through its yawning side the wave
Was oozing in; the mast was frail,
And old and torn its only sail.
How shall that crazy vessel brave
The billows, that in wild commotion
For ever roar and rave?
How hope to cross the dreadful Ocean,
O’er which eternal shadows dwell,
Whose secrets none return to tell!

Well might the travellers fear to enter!

{88}

But summon’d once on that adventure,
For them was no retreat.
Nor boots it with reluctant feet
To linger on the strand;
Aboard! aboard!
An awful voice, that left no choice,
Sent forth its stern command,
Aboard! aboard!
The travellers hear that voice in fear,
And breathe to Heaven an inward prayer,
And take their seats in silence there.

Self-hoisted then, behold the sail
Expands itself before the gale;
Hands, which they cannot see, let slip
The cable of that fated ship;
The land breeze sends her on her way,
And lo! they leave the living light of day!

XXI.
THE WORLD’S END.

{89}

Swift as an arrow in its flight
The Ship shot through the incumbent night;
And they have left behind
The raging billows and the roaring wind,
The storm, the darkness, and all mortal fears;
And lo! another light
To guide their way appears,
The light of other spheres.

That instant, from Ladurlad’s heart and brain

{90}

The Curse was gone; he feels again
Fresh as in Youth’s fair morning, and the Maid
Hath lost her leprous stain.
The dreadful Man hath no dominion here,
Starting she cried; O happy, happy hour!
We are beyond his power!
Then raising to the Glendoveer,
With heavenly beauty bright, her angel face,
Turn’d not reluctant now, and met his dear embrace.

Swift glides the Ship, with gentle motion,
Across that calm and quiet ocean;
That glassy sea, which seem’d to be
The mirror of tranquillity.
Their pleasant passage soon was o’er,
The Ship hath reach’d its destin’d shore;
A level belt of ice which bound,
As with an adamantine mound,
The waters of the sleeping Ocean round.
Strange forms were on the strand
Of earth-born spirits slain before their time;
Who, wandering over sea and sky and land,
Had so fulfill’d their term; and now were met

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Upon this icy belt, a motley band,
Waiting their summons, at the appointed hour
When each before the judgement-seat must stand,
And hear his doom from Baly’s righteous power.

Foul with habitual crimes, a hideous crew
Were there, the race of rapine and of blood.
Now, having overpast the mortal flood,
Their own deformity they knew,
And knew the meed that to their deeds was due.
Therefore in fear and agony they stood,
Expecting when the evil Messenger
Among them should appear. But with their fear
A hope was mingled now;
O’er the dark shade of guilt a deeper hue
It threw, and gave a fiercer character
To the wild eye and lip and sinful brow.
They hop’d that soon Kehama would subdue
The inexorable God, and seize his throne,
Reduce the infernal World to his command,
And, with his irresistible right hand,
Redeem them from the vaults of Padalon.

{92}

Apart from these a milder company,
The victims of offences not their own,
Look’d when the appointed Messenger should come;
Gathered together some, and some alone
Brooding in silence on their future doom.
Widows whom, to their husbands’ funeral fire,
Force or strong error led, to share the pyre,
As to their everlasting marriage-bed:
And babes, by sin unstain’d,
Whom erring parents vow’d
To Ganges, and the holy stream profan’d
With that strange sacrifice, rite unordain’d
By Law, by sacred Nature unallow’d:
Others more hapless in their destiny,
Scarce having first inhaled this vital breath,
Whose cradles from some tree
Unnatural hands suspended,
Then left, till gentle Death,
Coming like Sleep, their feeble moanings ended;
Or for his prey the ravenous Kite descended;
Or, marching like an army from their caves,
The Pismires blacken’d o’er, then bleach’d and bare

{93}

Left their unharden’d bones to fall asunder there.

Innocent Souls! thus set so early free
From sin and sorrow and mortality,
Their spotless spirits all-creating Love
Receiv’d into its universal breast.
Yon blue serene above
Was their domain; clouds pillowed them to rest;
The Elements on them like nurses tended,
And with their growth etherial substance blended.
Less pure than these is that strange Indian bird
Who never dips in earthly streams her bill,
But, when the sound of coming showers is heard,
Looks up, and from the clouds receives her fill.
Less pure the footless fowl of Heaven, that never
Rest upon earth, but on the wing for ever
Hovering o’er flowers, their fragrant food inhale,
Drink the descending dew upon its way,
And sleep aloft while floating on the gale.
And thus these innocents in yonder sky
Grow and are strengthen’d, while the allotted years
Perform their course, then hitherward they fly,
Being free from mortal taint, so free from fears,

{94}

A joyous band, expecting soon to soar
To Indra’s happy spheres,
And mingle with the blessed company
Of heavenly spirits there for evermore.

A Gulph profound surrounded
This icy belt; the opposite side
With highest rocks was bounded;
But where their heads they hide,
Or where their base is founded,
None could espy. Above all reach of sight
They rose, the second Earth was on their height,
Their feet were fix’d in everlasting night.

So deep the Gulph, no eye
Could plum its dark profundity,
Yet all its depth must try; for this the road
To Padalon, and Yamen’s dread abode.
And from below continually
Ministrant Demons rose and caught
The Souls whose hour was come;
Then, with their burthen fraught,

{95}

Plunged down, and bore them to receive their doom.

Then might be seen who went in hope, and who
Trembled to meet the meed
Of many a foul misdeed, as wild they threw
Their arms retorted from the Demons’ grasp,
And look’d around, all eagerly, to seek
For help, where help was none; and strove for aid
To clasp the nearest shade;
Yea, with imploring looks and horrent shriek,
Even from one Demon to another bending,
With hands extending,
Their mercy they essay’d.
Still from the verge they strain,
And from the dreadful gulph avert their eyes,
In vain; down plunge the Demons, and their cries
Feebly, as down they sink, from that profound arise.

10.

What heart of living man could, undisturb’d,
Bear sight so sad as this! What wonder there
If Kailyal’s lip were blanch’d with inmost dread!
The chill which from that icy belt

{96}

Struck through her, was less keen than what she felt
With her heart’s-blood through every limb dispread.
Close to the Glendoveer she clung,
And clasping round his neck her trembling hands,
She clos’d her eyes, and there in silence hung.

11.

Then to Ladurlad said the Glendoveer,
These Demons, whom thou seest, the ministers
Of Yamen, wonder to behold us here;
But for the dead they come, and not for us:
Therefore, albeit they gaze upon thee thus,
Have thou no fear.
A little while thou must be left alone,
Till I have borne thy Daughter down,
And placed her safely by the throne
Of him who keeps the Gate of Padalon.

12.

Then taking Kailyal in his arms, he said,
Be of good heart, Beloved! it is I
Who bear thee. Saying this, his wings he spread,
Sprung upward in the sky, and pois’d his flight,
Then plunged into the Gulph, and sought the World of Night.

XXII.
THE GATE OF PADALON.

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The strong foundations of this inmost Earth
Rest upon Padalon. That icy Mound
Which girt the mortal Ocean round,
Reach’d the profound, . .
Ice in the regions of the upper air,
Crystal midway, and adamant below,
Whose strength sufficed to bear
The weight of all this upper World of ours,
And with its rampart clos’d the Realm of Woe.
Eight gates hath Padalon; eight heavenly Powers
Have them in charge, each alway at his post,

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Lest, from their penal caves, the accursed host,
Maugre the might of Baly and the God,
Should break, and carry ruin all abroad.

Those gates stand ever open, night and day,
And Souls of mortal men
For ever throng the way.
Some from the dolorous den,
Children of sin and wrath, return no more:
They, fit companions of the Spirits accurst,
Are doom’d, like them in baths of fire immerst,
Or weltering upon beds of molten ore,
Or, stretch’d upon the brazen floor,
Are fasten’d down with adamantine chains;
While on their substance inconsumable,
Leeches of fire for ever hang and pull,
And worms of fire for ever gnaw their food,
That, still renew’d,
Freshens for ever their perpetual pains.

Others there were whom Baly’s voice condemned,
By long and painful penance, to atone

{99}

Their fleshly deeds. Them, from the Judgement-Throne,
Dread Azyoruca, where she sat involv’d
In darkness as a tent, receiv’d, and dealt
To each the measure of his punishment;
Till, in the central springs of fire, the Will
Impure is purged away; and the freed soul,
Thus fitted to receive its second birth,
Embodied once again, revisits Earth.

But they whom Baly’s righteous voice absolv’d,
And Yamen, viewing with benignant eye,
Dismiss’d to seek their heritage on high,
How joyfully they leave this gloomy bourne,
The dread sojourn
Of Guilt and twin-born Punishment and Woe,
And wild Remorse, here link’d with worse Despair!
They to the eastern Gate rejoicing go:
The Ship of Heaven awaits their coming there,
And on they sail, greeting the blessed light,
Through realms of upper air,
Bound for the Swerga once; but now no more
Their voyage rests upon that happy shore;
Since Indra, by the dreadful Rajah’s might

{100}

Compell’d, hath taken flight,
On to the second World their way they wend,
And there, in trembling hope, await the doubtful end.

For still in them doth hope predominate,
Faith’s precious privilege, when higher Powers
Give way to fear in these portentous hours.
Behold the Wardens eight,
Each silent at his gate
Expectant stands; they turn their anxious eyes
Within, and, listening to the dizzy din
Of mutinous uproar, each in all his hands
Holds all his weapons, ready for the fight.
For, hark! what clamorous cries
Upon Kehama for deliverance call!
Come, Rajah! they exclaim, too long we groan
In torments. Come, Deliverer! yonder throne
Awaits thee . . . Now, Kehama! Rajah, now!
Earthly Almighty, wherefore tarriest thou? . .
Such were the sounds that rung, in wild uproar,
O’er all the echoing vaults of Padalon;
And as the Asuras from the brazen floor,
Struggling against their fetters, strove to rise,

{101}

Their clashing chains were heard, and shrieks and cries,
With curses mix’d, against the Fiends who urge,
Fierce on their rebel limbs, the avenging scourge.

These were the sounds which, at the southern gate,
Assail’d Ereenia’s ear; alighting here
He laid before Neroodi’s feet the Maid,
Who, pale and cold with fear,
Hung on his neck, well-nigh a lifeless weight.

Who and what art thou? cried the Guardian Power,
Sight thus unwonted wondering to behold, . .
O Son of Light!
Who comest here at this portentous hour,
When Yamen’s throne
Trembles, and all our might can scarce keep down
The rebel race from seizing Padalon: . . .
Who and what art thou? and what wild despair,
Or wilder hope, from realms of upper air,
Tempts thee to bear
This mortal Maid to our forlorn abodes?
Fitter for her, I ween, the Swerga bowers,

{102}

And sweet society of heavenly Powers,
Than this, . . a doleful scene,
Even in securest hours.
And whither would ye go?
Alas! can human or celestial ear,
Unmadden’d, hear
The shrieks and yellings of infernal woe?
Can living flesh and blood
Endure the passage of the fiery flood?

Lord of the Gate, replied the Glendoveer,
We come obedient to the will of Fate;
And haply doom’d to bring
Hope and salvation to the Infernal King,
For Seeva sends us here.
Even He to whom futurity is known,
The Holiest, bade us go to Yamen’s throne.
Thou seest my precious charge;
Under thy care, secure from harm, I leave her,
While I ascend to bear her father down.
Beneath the shelter of thine arm receive her!

Then quoth he to the Maid,

{103}

Be of good cheer, my Kailyal! dearest dear,
In faith subdue thy dread,
Anon I shall be here. So having said,
Aloft, with vigorous bound, the Glendoveer
Sprung in celestial might,
And soaring up, in spiral circles, wound
His indefatigable flight.

10.

But, as he thus departed,
The Maid, who at Neroodi’s feet was lying,
Like one entranced or dying,
Recovering strength from sudden terror, started;
And gazing after him with straining sight,
And straining arms, she stood,
As if in attitude
To win him back from flight.
Yea, she had shap’d his name
For utterance, to recall and bid him stay,
Nor leave her thus alone; but virtuous shame
Represt the unbidden sounds upon their way;
And calling faith to aid,
Even in this fearful hour, the pious Maid
Collected courage, till she seem’d to be

{104}

Calm and in hope, such power had piety.
Before the Giant Keeper of the Gate
She crost her patient arms, and at his feet,
Prepar’d to meet
The awful will of Fate with equal mind,
She took her seat resign’d.

11.

Even the stern trouble of Neroodi’s brow
Relax’d as he beheld the valiant Maid.
Hope, long unfelt till now,
Rose in his heart reviving, and a smile
Dawn’d in his brightening countenance, the while
He gaz’d on her with wonder and delight.
The blessing of the Powers of Padalon,
Virgin, be on thee! cried the admiring God;
And blessed be the hour that gave thee birth,
Daughter of Earth,
For thou to this forlorn abode hast brought
Hope, who too long hath been a stranger here.
And surely for no lamentable lot,
Nature, who erreth not,
To thee that heart of fortitude hath given,
Those eyes of purity, that face of love: . .

{105}

If thou beest not the inheritrix of Heaven,
There is no truth above.

12.

Thus as Neroodi spake, his brow severe
Shone with an inward joy; for sure he thought
When Seeva sent so fair a creature here,
In this momentous hour,
Ere long the World’s deliverance would be wrought,
And Padalon escape the Rajah’s power.
With pious mind the Maid, in humble guise
Inclin’d, received his blessing silently,
And rais’d her grateful eyes
A moment, then again
Abas’d them at his presence. Hark! on high
The sound of coming wings! . . her anxious ears
Have caught the distant sound. Ereenia brings
His burthen down! Upstarting from her seat,
How joyfully she rears
Her eager head! and scarce upon the ground
Ladurlad’s giddy feet their footing found,
When, with her trembling arms, she claspt him round.
No word of greeting,
Nor other sign of joy at that strange meeting.

{106}

Expectant of their fate,
Silent, and hand in hand,
Before the Infernal Gate,
The Father and his heavenly Daughter stand.

13.

Then to Neroodi said the Glendoveer,
No Heaven-born Spirit e’er hath visited
This region drear and dread; but I, the first
Who tread your World accurst.
Lord of the Gate, to whom these realms are known,
Direct our fated way to Yamen’s throne.

14.

Bring forth my Chariot, Carmala! quoth then
The Keeper of the way.
It was the Car wherein
On Yamen’s festal day,
When all the Powers of Hell attend their King,
Yearly to Yamenpur did he repair
To pay his homage there.
Pois’d on a single wheel, it mov’d along,
Instinct with motion; by what wonderous skill
Compact, no human tongue could tell,

{107}

Nor human wit devise; but on that wheel
Moving or still,
As if an inward life sustain’d its weight,
Supported, stood the Car of miracle.

15.

Then Carmala brought forth two mantles, white
As the swan’s breast, and bright as mountain snow,
When from the wintry sky
The sun, late-rising, shines upon the height,
And rolling vapours fill the vale below.
Not without pain the unaccustom’d sight
That brightness could sustain;
For neither mortal stain,
Nor parts corruptible, remain,
Nor aught that time could touch, or force destroy,
In that pure web whereof the robes were wrought;
So long had it in ten-fold fires been tried,
And blanch’d, and to that brightness purified.
Apparel’d thus, alone,
Children of Earth, Neroodi cried,
In safety may ye pass to Yamen’s throne.
Thus only can your living flesh and blood
Endure the passage of the fiery flood.

{108}

16.

Of other frame, O Son of Heaven, art thou!
Yet hast thou now to go
Through regions which thy heavenly mould will try.
Glories unutterably bright, I know,
And beams intense of empyrean light,
Thine eye divine can bear: but fires of woe,
The sight of torments, and the cry
Of absolute despair,
Might not these things dismay thee on thy flight,
And thy strong pennons flag and fail thee there?
Trust not thy wings, celestial though thou art;
Nor thy good heart, which horror might assail
And pity quail,
Pity in these abodes of no avail;
But take thy seat this mortal pair beside,
And Carmala the infernal Car will guide.
Go, and may happy end your way betide!
So as he spake, the self-mov’d Car roll’d on,
And lo! they pass the Gate of Padalon.

XXIII.
PADALON.

{109}

Whoe’er hath lov’d with venturous step to tread
The chambers dread
Of some deep cave, and seen his taper’s beam
Lost in the arch of darkness overhead,
And mark’d its gleam,
Playing afar upon the sunless stream,
Where, from their secret bed,
And course unknown and inaccessible,
The silent waters well;
Whoe’er hath trod such caves of endless night,
He knows, when measuring back the gloomy way,

{110}

With what delight refresh’d, his eye
Perceives the shadow of the light of day,
Through the far portal slanting, where it falls
Dimly reflected on the watry walls;
How heavenly seems the sky,
And how, with quicken’d feet, he hastens up,
Eager again to greet
The living World, and blessed sunshine there,
And drink, as from a cup
Of joy, with thirsty lips, the open air.

Far other light than that of day there shone
Upon the travellers, entering Padalon.
They, too, in darkness entered on their way,
But, far before the Car,
A glow, as of a fiery furnace light,
Fill’d all before them. ’Twas a light which made
Darkness itself appear
A thing of comfort, and the sight, dismay’d,
Shrunk inward from the molten atmosphere.
Their way was through the adamantine rock
Which girt the World of Woe; on either side
Its massive walls arose, and overhead

{111}

Arch’d the long passage; onward as they ride,
With stronger glare the light around them spread,
And lo! the regions dread,
The World of Woe before them, opening wide.

There rolls the fiery flood,
Girding the realms of Padalon around.
A sea of flame it seem’d to be,
Sea without bound;
For neither mortal, nor immortal sight,
Could pierce across through that intensest light.
A single rib of steel,
Keen as the edge of keenest scymitar,
Spann’d this wide gulph of fire. The infernal Car
Roll’d to the Gulph, and on its single wheel
Self-balanced; rose upon that edge of steel.
Red-quivering float the vapours overhead;
The fiery gulph beneath them spread,
Tosses its billowing blaze with rush and roar;
Steady and swift the self-mov’d Chariot went,
Winning the long ascent,
Then, downward rolling, gains the farther shore.

{112}

But, oh! what sounds and sights of woe,
What sights and sounds of fear,
Assail the mortal travellers here!
Their way was on a causey straight and wide,
Where penal vaults on either side were seen,
Ranged like the cells wherein
Those wonderous winged alchemists infold
Their stores of liquid gold.
Thick walls of adamant divide
The dungeons; and from yonder circling flood,
Off-streams of fire through secret channels glide,
And wind among them, and in each provide
An everlasting food
Of righteous torments for the accursed brood.

These were the rebel race, who, in their might
Confiding impiously, would fain have driven
The Deities supreme from highest Heaven;
But by the Suras, in celestial fight,
Oppos’d and put to flight,
Here, in their penal dens, the accursed crew,

{113}

Not for its crime, but for its failure, rue
Their wild ambition. Yet again they long
The contest to renew,
And wield their arms again in happier hour;
And with united power,
Following Kehama’s triumph, to press on
From World to World, and Heaven to Heaven, and Sphere
To Sphere, till Hemakoot shall be their own,
And Meru Mount, and Indra’s Swerga-Bowers,
And Brama’s region, where the heavenly Hours
Weave the vast circle of his age-long day.
Even over Veeshnoo’s empyreal seat
They trust the Rajah shall extend their sway,
And that the seven-headed Snake, whereon
The strong Preserver sets his conquering feet,
Will rise and shake him headlong from his throne,
When, in their irresistible array,
Amid the Milky Sea they force their way.
Even higher yet their frantic thoughts aspire;
Yea, on their beds of torment as they lie,
The highest, holiest Seeva, they defy,
And tell him they shall have anon their day,
When they will storm his realm, and seize Mount Calasay.

{114}

Such impious hopes torment
Their raging hearts, impious and impotent;
And now, with unendurable desire
And lust of vengeance, that, like inward fire,
Doth aggravate their punishment, they rave
Upon Kehama; him the accursed rout
Acclaim; with furious cries and maddening shout
They call on him to save;
Kehama! they exclaim;
Thundering, the dreadful echo rolls about,
And Hell’s whole vault repeats Kehama’s name.

Over these dens of punishment, the host
Of Padalon maintain eternal guard,
Keeping upon the walls their vigilant ward.
At every angle stood
A watch-tower, the decurion Demon’s post,
Where, rais’d on high, he view’d with sleepless eye
His trust, that all was well. And over these,
Such was the perfect discipline of Hell,
Captains of fifties and of hundreds held
Authority, each in his loftier tower;

{115}

And chiefs of legions over them had power;
And thus all Hell with towers was girt around.
Aloft the brazen turrets shone
In the red light of Padalon,
And on the walls between,
Dark moving, the infernal Guards were seen,
Gigantic Demons pacing to and fro;
Who ever and anon,
Spreading their crimson pennons, plunged below,
Faster to rivet down the Asuras’ chains;
And with the snaky scourge and fiercer pains,
Repress their rage rebellious. Loud around,
In mingled sound, the echoing lash, the clash
Of chains, the ponderous hammer’s iron stroke,
With execrations, groans, and shrieks and cries
Combin’d, in one wild dissonance, arise;
And through the din there broke,
Like thunder heard through all the warring winds,
The dreadful name. Kehama, still they rave,
Hasten and save!
Now, now, Deliverer! now, Kehama, now!
Earthly Almighty, wherefore tarriest thou!

Oh, if that name abhorr’d,

{116}

Thus utter’d, could well nigh
Dismay the Powers of Hell, and daunt their Lord,
How fearfully to Kailyal’s ear it came!
She, as the Car roll’d on its rapid way,
Bent down her head, and clos’d her eyes for dread;
And deafening, with strong effort from within,
Her ears against the din,
Cover’d and prest them close with both her hands.
Sure if the mortal Maiden had not fed
On heavenly food, and long been strengthened
With heavenly converse for such end vouchsaf’d,
Her human heart had fail’d, and she had died
Beneath the horrors of this awful hour.
But heaven supplied a power
Beyond her earthly nature, to the measure
Of need infusing strength;
And Fate, whose secret and unerring pleasure
Appointed all, decreed
An ample meed and recompence at length.
High-fated Maid, the righteous hour is nigh!
The all-embracing Eye
Of Retribution still beholdeth thee;
Bear onward to the end, O Maid, courageously!

{117}

On roll’d the Car, and lo! afar
Upon its height the Towers of Yamenpur
Rise on the astonish’d sight.
Behold the infernal City, Yamen’s seat
Of empire, in the midst of Padalon,
Where the eight causeys meet.
There on a rock of adamant it stood,
Resplendent far and wide,
Itself of solid diamond edified,
And all around it roll’d the fiery flood.
Eight bridges arch’d the stream; huge piles of brass
Magnificent, such structures as beseem
The Seat and Capital of such great God,
Worthy of Yamen’s own august abode.
A brazen tower and gateway at each end
Of each was rais’d, where Giant Wardens stood,
Station’d in arms the passage to defend,
That never foe might cross the fiery flood.

10.

Oh what a gorgeous sight it was to see
The Diamond City blazing on its height
With more than mid-sun splendour, by the light

{118}

Of its own fiery river!
Its towers and domes and pinnacles and spires,
Turrets and battlements, that flash and quiver
Through the red restless atmosphere for ever.
And hovering over head,
The smoke and vapours of all Padalon,
Fit firmament for such a world, were spread,
With surge and swell, and everlasting motion,
Heaving and opening like tumultuous ocean.

11.

Nor were there wanting there
Such glories as beseem’d such region well;
For though with our blue heaven and genial air
The firmament of Hell might not compare,
As little might our earthly tempests vie
With the dread storms of that infernal sky,
Whose clouds of all metallic elements
Sublim’d were full. For, when its thunder broke,
Not all the united World’s artillery,
In one discharge, could equal that loud stroke;
And though the Diamond Towers and Battlements
Stood firm upon their adamantine rock,
Yet, while it vollied round the vault of Hell,

{119}

Earth’s solid arch was shaken with the shock,
And Cities in one mighty ruin fell.
Through the red sky terrific meteors scour;
Huge stones come hailing down; or sulphur-shower,
Floating amid the lurid air like snow,
Kindles in its descent,
And with blue fire-drops rains on all below.
At times the whole supernal element
Igniting, burst in one vast sheet of flame,
And roar’d as with the sound
Of rushing winds, above, below, around;
Anon the flame was spent, and overhead
A heavy cloud of moving darkness spread.

12.

Straight to the brazen bridge and gate
The self-mov’d Chariot bears its mortal load.
At sight of Carmala,
On either side the Giant guards divide,
And give the chariot way.
Up yonder winding road it rolls along,
Swift as the bittern soars on spiral wing,
And lo! the Palace of the Infernal King!

{120}

13.

Two forms inseparable in unity
Hath Yamen; even as with hope or fear
The Soul regardeth him doth he appear;
For hope and fear,
At that dread hour, from ominous conscience spring,
And err not in their bodings. Therefore some,
They who polluted with offences come,
Behold him as the King
Of Terrors, black of aspect, red of eye;
Reflecting back upon the sinful mind,
Heighten’d with vengeance, and with wrath divine,
Its own inborn deformity.
But to the righteous Spirit how benign
His awful countenance,
Where, tempering justice with parental love,
Goodness and heavenly grace
And sweetest mercy shine! Yet is he still
Himself the same, one form, one face, one will;
And these his twofold aspects are but one;
And change is none
In him, for change in Yamen could not be,
The Immutable is he.

{121}

14.

He sate upon a marble sepulchre
Massive and huge, where, at the Monarch’s feet,
The righteous Baly had his judgement-seat.
A Golden Throne before them vacant stood;
Three human forms sustain’d its ponderous weight,
With lifted hands outspread, and shoulders bow’d
Bending beneath their load.
A fourth was wanting. They were of the hue
Of coals of fire; yet were they flesh and blood,
And living breath they drew;
And their red eye-balls roll’d with ghastly stare,
As thus, for their misdeeds, they stood tormented there.

15.

On steps of gold those fiery Statues stood,
Who bore the Golden Throne. A cloud behind
Immoveable was spread; not all the light
Of all the flames and fires of Padalon
Could pierce its depth of night.
There Azyoruca veil’d her awful form
In those eternal shadows: there she sate,
And as the trembling Souls, who crowd around
The Judgement-Seat, received the doom of fate,

{122}

Her giant arms, extending from the cloud,
Drew them within the darkness. Moving out,
To grasp and bear away the innumerous rout,
For ever and for ever thus were seen
The thousand mighty arms of that dread Queen.

16.

Here, issuing from the car, the Glendoveer
Did homage to the God, then rais’d his head.
Suppliants we come, he said,
I need not tell thee by what wrongs opprest,
For nought can pass on earth to thee unknown;
Sufferers from tyranny we seek for rest,
And Seeva bade us go to Yamen’s throne;
Here, he hath said, all wrongs shall be redrest.
Yamen replied, Even now the hour draws near,
When Fate its hidden ways will manifest.
Not for light purpose would the Wisest send
His suppliants here, when we, in doubt and fear,
The awful issue of the hour attend.
Wait ye in patience and in faith the end!

XXIV.
THE AMREETA.

{123}

So spake the King of Padalon, when, lo!
The voice of lamentation ceas’d in Hell,
And sudden silence all around them fell,
Silence more wild and terrible
Than all the infernal dissonance before.
Through that portentous stillness, far away,
Unwonted sounds were heard, advancing on,
And deepening on their way;
For now the inexorable hour
Was come, and in the fullness of his power,

{124}

Now that the dreadful rites had all been done,
Kehama from the Swerga hastened down,
To seize upon the throne of Padalon.

He came in all his might and majesty,
With all his terrors clad, and all his pride;
And, by the attribute of Deity,
Which he had won from Heaven, self-multiplied,
The dreadful One appear’d on every side.
In the same indivisible point of time,
At the eight Gates he stood at once, and beat
The Warden-Gods of Hell beneath his feet;
Then, in his brazen Cars of triumph, straight,
At the same moment, drove through every gate.
By Aullays, hugest of created kind,
Fiercest, and fleeter than the viewless wind,
His Cars were drawn, ten yokes of ten abreast, . .
What less sufficed for such almighty weight?
Eight bridges from the fiery flood arose
Growing before his way; and on he goes,
And drives the thundering Chariot-wheels along,
At once o’er all the roads of Padalon.

{125}

Silent and motionless remain
The Asuras on their bed of pain,
Waiting, with breathless hope, the great event.
All Hell was hush’d in dread,
Such awe that omnipresent coming spread;
Nor had its voice been heard, though all its rout
Innumerable had lifted up one shout;
Nor if the infernal firmament
Had, in one unimaginable burst,
Spent its collected thunders, had the sound
Been audible, such louder terrors went
Before his forms substantial. Round about
The presence scattered lightnings far and wide,
That quench’d on every side,
With their intensest blaze, the feebler fire
Of Padalon, even as the stars go out,
When, with prodigious light,
Some blazing meteor fills the astonish’d night.

The Diamond City shakes;
The adamantine Rock
Is loosen’d with the shock;

{126}

From its foundation mov’d, it heaves and quakes;
The brazen portals crumbling fall to dust;
Prone fall the Giant Guards
Beneath the Aullays crush’d.
On, on, through Yamenpur, their thundering feet
Speed from all points to Yamen’s judgement-seat.
And lo! where multiplied,
Behind, before him, and on every side,
Wielding all weapons in his countless hands,
Around the Lord of Hell Kehama stands!
Then, too, the Lord of Hell put forth his might:
Thick darkness, blacker than the blackest night,
Rose from their wrath, and veil’d
The unutterable fight.
The power of Fate and Sacrifice prevail’d,
And soon the strife was done.
Then did the Man-God re-assume
His unity, absorbing into one
The consubstantiate shapes; and as the gloom
Opened, fallen Yamen on the ground was seen,
His neck beneath the conquering Rajah’s feet,
Who on the marble tomb
Had his triumphal seat.

{127}

Silent the Man-Almighty sate; a smile
Gleam’d on his dreadful lips, the while
Dallying with power, he paus’d from following up
His conquest, as a man in social hour
Sips of the grateful cup,
Again and yet again, with curious taste,
Searching its subtle flavour ere he drink.
Even so Kehama now forbore his haste;
Having within his reach whate’er he sought,
On his own haughty power he seem’d to muse,
Pampering his arrogant heart with silent thought.
Before him stood the Golden Throne in sight,
Right opposite; he could not chuse but see,
Nor seeing chuse but wonder. Who are ye
Who bear the Golden Throne, tormented there?
He cried; for whom doth Destiny prepare
The imperial seat? and why are ye but Three?

First Statue.

I of the Children of Mankind was first,
Me miserable! who, adding store to store,
Heapt up superfluous wealth; and now accurst,
For ever I the frantic crime deplore.

{128}

Second Statue.

I o’er my Brethren of Mankind the first
Usurping power, set up a throne sublime,
A King and Conqueror: therefore thus accurst,
For ever I in vain repent the crime.

Third Statue.

I on the Children of Mankind the first,
In God’s most holy name, impos’d a tale
Of impious falsehood; therefore thus accurst,
For ever I in vain the crime bewail.

Even as thou here beholdest us,
Here we have stood, tormented thus,
Such countless ages, that they seem to be
Long as eternity,
And still we are but Three.
A Fourth will come to share
Our pain, at yonder vacant corner bear
His portion of the burthen, and compleat
The golden Throne for Yamen’s judgement-seat.
Thus hath it been appointed: he must be

{129}

Equal in guilt to us, the guilty Three.
Kehama, come! too long we wait for thee!

Thereat, with one accord,
The Three took up the word, like choral song,
Come, Rajah! Man-God! Earth’s Almighty Lord!
Kehama, come! we wait for thee too long.

A short and sudden laugh of wondering pride
Burst from him in his triumph: to reply
Scornful he deign’d not; but with alter’d eye,
Wherein some doubtful meaning seem’d to lie,
He turn’d to Kailyal. Maiden, thus he cried,
I need not bid thee see
How vain it is to strive with Fate’s decree,
When hither thou hast fled to fly from me,
And lo! even here thou find’st me at thy side.
Mine thou must be, being doom’d with me to share
The Amreeta-cup of immortality;
Yea, by Myself I swear
It hath been thus appointed. Joyfully
Join then thy hand and heart and will with mine,

{130}

Nor at such glorious destiny repine,
Nor in thy folly more provoke my wrath divine.

She answer’d; I have said. It must not be!
Almighty as thou art,
Thou hast put all things underneath thy feet,
But still the resolute heart
And virtuous will are free.
Never, oh! never, . . never . . can there be
Communion, Rajah, between thee and me.

10.

Once more, quoth he, I urge, and once alone.
Thou seest yon Golden Throne,
Where I anon shall set thee by my side;
Take thou thy seat thereon,
Kehama’s willing bride,
And I will place the Kingdoms of the World
Beneath thy Father’s feet,
Appointing him the King of mortal men:
Else underneath that Throne,
The Fourth supporter, he shall stand and groan;
Prayers will be vain to move my mercy then.

{131}

11.

Again the Virgin answer’d, I have said!
Ladurlad caught her in his proud embrace,
While on his neck she hid
In agony her face.

12.

Bring forth the Amreeta-cup! Kehama cried
To Yamen, rising sternly in his pride.
It is within the Marble Sepulchre,
The vanquish’d Lord of Padalon replied,
Bid it be opened. . . . Give thy treasure up!
Exclaim’d the Man-Almighty to the Tomb.
And at his voice and look
The massy fabric shook, and opened wide.
A huge Anatomy was seen reclin’d
Within its marble womb. Give me the Cup!
Again Kehama cried; no other charm
Was needed than that voice of stern command.
From his repose the ghastly form arose,
Put forth his bony and gigantic arm,
And gave the Amreeta to the Rajah’s hand.
Take! drink! with accents dread the Spectre said,
For thee and Kailyal hath it been assign’d,

{132}

Ye only of the Children of Mankind.

13.

Then was the Man-Almighty’s heart elate;
This is the consummation! he exclaim’d,
Thus have I triumphed over Death and Fate.
Now, Seeva! look to thine abode!
Henceforth, on equal footing we engage,
Alike immortal now, and we will wage
Our warfare, God to God!
Joy fill’d his impious soul,
And to his lips he rais’d the fatal bowl.

14.

Thus long the Glendoveer had stood,
Watching the wonders of the eventful hour,
Amaz’d but undismay’d; for in his heart
Faith, overcoming fear, maintain’d its power.
Nor had that faith abated, when the God
Of Padalon was beaten down in fight;
For then he look’d to see the heavenly might
Of Seeva break upon them. But when now
He saw the Amreeta in Kehama’s hand,
An impulse which denied all self-command

{133}

In that extremity
Stung him, and he resolved to seize the cup,
And dare the Rajah’s force in Seeva’s sight.
Forward he sprung to tempt the unequal fray,
When lo! the Anatomy,
With warning arm, withstood his desperate way,
And from the Golden Throne the fiery Three
Again, in one accord, renew’d their song,
Kehama, come! we wait for thee too long.

15.

O fool of drunken hope and frantic vice!
Madman! to seek for power beyond thy scope
Of knowledge, and to deem
Less than omniscience could suffice
To wield omnipotence! O fool, to dream
That immortality could be
The meed of evil! . . yea thou hast it now,
Victim of thine own wicked heart’s device,
Thou hast thine object now, and now must pay the price.

16.

He did not know the awful mystery
Of that divinest cup, that as the lips

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Which touch it, even such its quality,
Good or malignant: Madman! and he thinks
The blessed prize is won, and joyfully he drinks.

17.

Then Seeva opened on the Accursed One
His Eye of Anger: upon him alone
The wrath-beam fell. He shudders . . . but too late;
The deed is done,
The dreadful liquor works the will of Fate.
Immortal he would be,
Immortal he remains; but through his veins
Torture at once and immortality,
A stream of poison doth the Amreeta run,
Infinite everlasting agony.
And while within the burning anguish flows,
His outward body glows
Like molten ore beneath the avenging eye,
Doom’d thus to live and burn eternally.
The fiery Three,
Beholding him, set up a fiendish cry,
A song of jubilee:
Come, Brother, come! they sung; too long
We in our torments have expected thee;

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Come, Brother, come! henceforth we bear no more
The unequal weight; Come, Brother, we are Four!

18.

Vain his almightiness, for mightier pain
Subdued all power; pain ruled supreme alone.
And yielding to the bony hand
The unemptied cup, he mov’d toward the throne,
And at the vacant corner took his stand.
Behold the Golden Throne at length compleat,
And Yamen silently ascends the Judgement-Seat.

19.

For two alone, of all mankind, to me
The Amreeta-Cup was given,
Then said the Anatomy;
The Man hath drank, the Woman’s turn is next.
Come, Kailyal, come, receive thy doom,
And do the Will of Heaven! . .
Wonder, and Fear, and Awe at once perplext
The mortal Maiden’s heart, but over all
Hope rose triumphant. With a trembling hand,
Obedient to his call,
She took the fated Cup; and, lifting up

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Her eyes, where holy tears began to swell,
Is it not your command,
Ye heavenly Powers? as on her knees she fell,
The pious Virgin cried;
Ye know my innocent will, my heart sincere,
Ye govern all things still,
And wherefore should I fear!

20.

She said, and drank. The Eye of Mercy beam’d
Upon the Maid: a cloud of fragrance steam’d
Like incense-smoke, as all her mortal frame
Dissolved beneath the potent agency
Of that mysterious draught; such quality,
From her pure touch, the fated Cup partook.
Like one entranced she knelt,
Feeling her body melt
Till all but what was heavenly past away:
Yet still she felt
Her spirit strong within her, the same heart,
With the same loves, and all her heavenly part,
Unchanged, and ripen’d to such perfect state,
In this miraculous birth, as here on Earth,
Dimly our holiest hopes anticipate.

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21.

Mine! mine! with rapturous joy Ereenia cried,
Immortal now, and yet not more divine;
Mine, mine. . . for ever mine!
The immortal Maid replied,
For ever, ever, thine!

22.

Then Yamen said, O thou to whom, by Fate,
Alone of all mankind, this lot is given,
Daughter of Earth, but now the Child of Heaven
Go with thy heavenly Mate,
Partaker now of his immortal bliss;
Go to the Swerga Bowers,
And there recall the hours
Of endless happiness.

23.

But that sweet Angel, for she still retain’d
Her human loves and human piety,
As if reluctant at the God’s commands,
Linger’d, with anxious eye
Upon her father fix’d, and spread her hands
Toward him wistfully.

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Go! Yamen cried, nor cast that look behind
Upon Ladurlad at this parting hour,
For thou shalt find him in thy Mother’s Bower.

24.

The Car, as Carmala his word obey’d,
Mov’d on, and bore away the Maid,
While from the Golden Throne the Lord of Death
With love benignant, on Ladurlad smil’d,
And gently on his head his blessing laid.
As sweetly as a child,
Whom neither thought disturbs nor care encumbers,
Tir’d with long play, at close of summer day,
Lies down and slumbers,
Even thus as sweet a boon of sleep partaking,
By Yamen blest, Ladurlad sunk to rest.
Blessed that sleep! more blessed was the waking!
For on that night a heavenly morning broke,
The light of heaven was round him when he woke,
And in the Swerga, in Yedillian’s Bower,
All whom he lov’d he met, to part no more.

THE END.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Curse of Kehama, Volume 2 (of 2)

The
Curse of Kehama:
by
Robert Southey.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.

CONTENTS
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VOLUME SECOND.