The holy image shakes!

Irreverently bold, they deem the maid

Relax'd her stubborn hold,

And now with force redoubled drag their prey;

And now the rooted idol to their sway

Bends, yields, and now it falls. But then they

...

scream,

...

For lo! they feel the crumbling bank give way,
And all are plunged into the stream.
She hath escap'd my will, Kehama cried,

She hath escap❜d,

but thou art here,

I have thee still,

The worser criminal!

And on Ladurlad, while he spake, severe

He fix'd his dreadful frown.

The strong reflection of the pile

Lit his dark lineaments,

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

But while the fearful silence yet endur'd,

Ladurlad rous'd his soul;

Ere yet the voice of destiny

Which trembled on the Rajah's lips was loos'd
Eager he interpos'd,

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!

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 rais'd His brow yet unrelax'd, ... his lips unclos'd, And utter'd from the heart,

With the whole feeling of his soul enforced, The gather'd vengeance came.

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.

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 hop'd it were a dream,

And fear'd to move, lest he should prove
The actual misery ;

And still at times he met Kehama's eye,

Kehama's eye that fasten'd on him still.

III.

THE RECOVERY.

The Rajah turn'd toward the pile again,

Loud rose the

song of death from all the crowd;

Their din the instruments begin,

At 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.