Lit the protruded brow, the gathered front, The steady eye of wrath.

12.

But while the fearful silence yet endured,
Ladurlad roused himself;

Ere yet the voice of destiny

Which trembled on the Rajah's lips was loosed
Eager he interposed,

As if despair had waken'd him to hope;
Mercy! oh mercy! only in defence...
Only instinctively,...

Only to save my child, I smote the Prince;
King of the world, be merciful!
Crush me, but torture not!

...

13.

The Man-Almighty deign'd him no reply, Still he stood silent; in no human mood Of mercy, in no hesitating thought Of right and justice. At the length he raised His brow yet unrelax'd, his lips unclosed,

...

And uttered from the heart,

With the whole feeling of his soul enforced, The gathered vengeance came.

14.

I charm thy life

From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,

From fire and from flood,

From the serpent's tooth,

And the beasts of blood:

From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee;
But Earth which is mine,

Its fruits shall deny thee;
And Water shall hear me,

And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,

And the Dews shall not wet thee,
When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And Sleep shall obey me,

And visit thee never,

And the Curse shall be on thee
For ever and ever.

15.

There where the Curse had stricken him,
There stood the miserable man,

There stood Ladurlad, with loose-hanging arms, And eyes of idiot wandering.

Was it a dream? alas,

He heard the river flow,

He heard the crumbling of the pile,
He heard the wind which shower'd

The thin white ashes round.

There motionless he stood,

As if he hoped it were a dream, And feared to move, lest he should prove The actual misery;

And still at times he met Kehama's eye,

Kehama's eye that fastened on him still.

17

III.

THE RECOVERY.

1.

THE Rajah turned toward the pile again,
Loud rose the song of death from all the crowd;
Their din the instruments begin,
And once again join in
With overwhelming sound.
Ladurlad starts,... he looks around;
What hast thou here in view,

O wretched man! in this disastrous scene?
The soldier train, the Bramins who renew
Their ministry around the funeral pyre,
The empty palankeens,
The dimly-fading fire.

2.

Where too is she whom most his heart held dear, His best-beloved Kailyal, where is she,

The solace and the joy of

many a year

Of widowhood? is she then gone,
And is he left all-utterly alone,
To bear his blasting curse, and none
To succour or deplore him?

He staggers from the dreadful spot; the throng Give way in fear before him;

Like one who carries pestilence about, Shuddering they shun him, where he moves along. And now he wanders on

Beyond the noisy rout;

He cannot fly and leave his Curse behind,
Yet doth he seem to find

A comfort in the change of circumstance.
Adown the shore he strays,

Unknowing where his wretched feet shall rest,
But farthest from the fatal place is best.

3.

By this in the orient sky appears the gleam
Of day. Lo! what is yonder in the stream,
Down the slow river floating slow,
In distance indistinct and dimly seen?
The childless one with idle eye
Followed its motion thoughtlessly;
Idly he gaz'd unknowing why,

And half unconscious that he watch'd its way.
Belike it is a tree

Which some rude tempest, in its sudden sway, Tore from the rock, or from the hollow shore The undermining stream hath swept away.

4.

But when anon outswelling by its side,
A woman's robe he spied,
Oh then Ladurlad started,
As one, who in his grave