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THE 
 
 HINDU ¥IFE 
 
 OR 
 
 THE EKCHANTED FRUIT. 
 
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 EAJ LAKSHI DEBI^ |U-ovu6 . 
 
 CALCUTTA : . • 
 
 TRUBNER & Co., 57 & 59, LUDQATE HILL, LONDON. 
 J. CHOSE & Co., 32, JHAMAPOOkuU LANE. 
 
 1876. 
 
 P.y«. iT?,-.| y ^ only. 
 
.r _ I 
 
hl-n ' 
 
 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE HINDU WIFE. 
 
 * O LOVELY age i, by Brahmens fam'd 
 Pure Setye Yug ^ in Sanscrit nam'd I 
 Delightful ! Not for cups of gold. 
 Or wives a thousand centuries old ; 
 Or men, degenerate now and small. 
 Then one and twenty cubits tall : 
 Not that plump coivs full udders bore, 
 And bowls with holy curd 3 ran o'er ; 
 Not that, by Deities defended 
 Fish, Boar, Snake, Lio7i ^, heav'n-descended, 
 Leam'd Pendits, now grown sticks and clods, 
 Kedde fast the Nagry of the Gods ^ 
 And laymen, faithful to Narayn 6 
 Believ'd in Brahmds mystic strain 7 
 
 1. A parody on the Ode in Toad's Aminta, beginning, bella eta dell ' oro f 
 
 2. The Golden Age of the Hindus. 
 
 3. Called JogTirdt, the food of Crishna in his infancy and youth, 
 
 4. The four firsfe Avata'rs, or Incarnations of the Divine Spirit. 
 
 5. The Sanscrit, or Sengscrit, is written in letters so named. 
 
 6. Narayn or Nd'rd'yan, the Spirit of God. 
 
 7. The Vayds, or Sacred Writings of Brahma, called Rig, Sa'm, and Yeiar : doubts have 
 been raised concerning the authority of ihe;fourth, or Ai'hrv&n, Vai/d, , 
 
 237 
 
THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 Not that all Subjects spoke plain truth, 
 While Rajas cherish'd eld and youth. 
 No — yet delightful times !^ because 
 Nature then reign'd, and Nature's Laivs ; 
 When females of the softest kind 
 Were unaffected, unconfin'd ; 
 And this gi-and rule from none was hidden ^ ; 
 What pleaseth, hath no law forbidden.' 
 
 Thus, with a lyre in.' India strung, 
 Amintas poet would have sung ; 
 And thus too, in a modest way. 
 All virtuous males Avill sing or say : 
 But swarthy nymphs of Hindustan 
 Look deeper than short-sighted man, 
 And thus, in some poetic chime. 
 Would speak with reason, as with rhyme : 
 * lovelier age, by Brahmens fam'd. 
 Gay DwdjMr Yug ^ in Sanscrit nam'd ! 
 Delightful ! though impure with brass 
 In many a green ill-scented mass ; 
 Though husbands, but sevn cubits high. 
 Must in a thousand summers die ; 
 Though, in the lives of dwindled men, 
 Ten parts were Sin ; Religion, ten ; 
 Though cows would rarely fill the pail, 
 But made th' expected creambowl fail ; 
 Though lazy Pendits ill could read 
 (No care of ours) their Yejar Veid ; 
 • Though Rajas look'd a little proud, ^ 
 And Ranies rather spoke too loud ; 
 Though Gods, display 'd to mortal view 
 In mortal -forms, were only two ; 
 
 8. " Se place, ei lice." Tasso. , 
 
 9. The Brar.m Aqc, or that in which Vice autl Virtue were in equal proportiw 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. ^3* 
 
 (Yet CmsHNA lo^ sweetest youth, was one, 
 Crishna, whose cheeks outblaz'd the sun) 
 DeHghtful, ne'ertheless ! because ^ 
 
 Not bound by vile unnatilral law^s, 
 , Which curse this age from Cdley H nam'd; 
 By some base woman-hater fram'd. 
 Prepost'rous ! that one biped vain 
 Should drag ten house-wives in his train, 
 And stuff them in a gaudy cage, 
 Slaves to weak lust or potent rage ? 
 Not such the Divdper Yug ! oh then 
 One BUXOM dame might wed five men.' ' 
 
 True History, in solemn terms, 
 This Philosophic lore confirms ; 
 For India once, as now cold Tibet ^^^ 
 A groupe unusual might exhibit, 
 , Of sev'ral husbands, free from strife, 
 
 Link'd fairly to a single wife ! 
 
 Thus Botanists, with eyes acute | ; v' ^ 
 
 To see prolific dust minute, I 
 
 Taught by their learned northern Brahncn 13 | 
 To class by pistil and by stamen, \ 
 
 Produce from nature's rich dominion [ 
 
 Flow'rs Polyandrian Monogynian, 
 Where embryon blossoms, fruits, and leaves 
 Twenty prepare, and one receives. 
 
 But, lest my word should nought avail, 
 Ye Fair to no unholy tale 
 
 10. The Apollo of India, 
 
 11. The Earthen Age, or that of Caly or Impurity : this verse aUudes to Ca'ley, the 
 Hecate of the Indians. 
 
 12- See the accounts published in the Philosophical Transactions from the papers 
 of Mr. Bogle. , 
 
 13. Linnaeus, 
 
THE EXCfRANTED FUUIT ; OR, 
 
 Attend. 14 Pive thousand years i^ ago, 
 As annals in Benares show, 
 When Pdndu chiefs with Gurus fought ^^ 
 And each the throne imperial sought, 
 Five brothers of the reofal line 
 Blaz'd high with qualities divine. 
 The first a prince witlwut his peer. 
 Just, pious, lib'ral Yudhishteir 17 ; 
 
 Then Erjun, to the base a rod, 
 
 An Hero favour'd by a God is r 
 
 'Bheima, like mountain-leopard strong, 
 
 Unrival'd fn th' embattled throng. 
 
 Bold Nacul, fir'd by noble shame 
 
 To emulate fraternal fame ; 
 
 And Selideo, flush' d with manly grace, 
 
 Bright virtue dawning in his face : 
 
 To these a dame devoid of care, 
 
 Blythe Drawpady, the debonair, 
 
 E-enown'd for beauty, and for wit, 
 
 In wedlock's pleasing chain was kniti^ 
 
 14. The story is told by the Jesuit Bouchet, in his Letter to Huet, Bishop oi Avranches. 
 
 15. A round number is chosen ; but the Cahj Yug, a little before which Crishna disappeared 
 from this world, heg&n four thousand, eight hundred, and eighty-four years ago, that is, 
 according to our Chronotogists, seven hundred and forty seven before the flood ; and by the 
 calculation of M. Bailly, but four hundred and fifty-four after the foundation of the 
 Indian empire. 
 
 16. This war, which Crishna fomented in favour of the Pandu Prince, Yudhishtir, suppli- 
 ed Vya's with the subject of his noble Epic Poem, Maha'bha'rat. 
 
 17. This word is commonly pronounced with a strong accent on the last letter, but tho 
 preceding vowel is short in Sengscrit. The Prince is called on the Coast Dherme Ra'j, or 
 Chief Magistrate. 
 
 18. The Geita, containing Instructions to Erjun, was comac^ed by Crishna who peculiarly 
 distinguished him. 
 
 19. Yudhishtir and Draupady, called Drohadu by 31. Sonnerat, are deified on the Coast ; 
 and their feast, of which that writer exhibits an engraving, is named the Procession of 
 Fire, because she passed cwe»7 2/car from one of her ^we husbands to another, after a 
 solemn purification by that clement. In the _ Bha'sha' language, her name is written, 
 
 Dno'riy. 
 
^ » 
 
 THE HINDU WIFE. 
 
 It fortun'd, at an idle hour, • 
 
 This five-mal'd single-femal'd flow'r 
 One balmy morn of fruitful May- 
 Through vales and meadows took its way. 
 , A low thatch'd mansion met their eye 
 In trees umbrageous bosom'd high ; 
 Near it (no sight, young maids, for you) 
 A temple rose to Mahadeiv 20. 
 A thorny hedge and reedy gate 
 Enclos'd the garden's homely state ; 
 Plain in its neatness : thither wend 
 The princes and their lovely friend. 
 Light-pinion'd gales, to charm the sense. 
 Their odorifrous breath dispense; 
 From Belas 21 pearl'd, or pointed, bloom, 
 And Mdlty rich, they steal perfume : 
 There honey-scented SingarJidr, 
 And Jichy, like a rising star. 
 Strong Chemiod, darted by Cdmdeiv, 
 And Mulsery of paler hue, 
 Cayora 22^ which the Ranies wear 
 In tangles of their silken hair, 
 Round 23 Bdhul-B.ow'YS, and Gulachein 
 Dyed like the shell of Beauty's Queen, 
 Sweet Mincly 24 press'd for crimson stains. 
 And sacred Txdsy ^^, pride of plains. 
 With Sewty, small unblushing rose, 
 Their odours mix, their tints disclose, 
 
 20. The Indian Jupiter. 
 
 21. The varities of Bela, an(r*the tJiree flowers next mentioned, are beautiful species of 
 Jasmin. 
 
 22. The Indian Spikenard. 
 
 23. The Mimota, or true Acacia, that produces the Arabian Gum. 
 
 24. Called Alhhinna' by the Arabs. 
 
 25. Of the kind called Ocymum. 
 
' 6 • TUE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 And, as a gemmed tiara, bright, 
 Paint the fresh branches with deliofht. 
 
 One tree above all others tower'd 
 With shrubs and saplings close imbower'd, 
 For every blooming child of Spring 
 Paid homage to the verdant King : 
 Aloft a solitary fruit. 
 Full sixty cubits from the root, 
 Kiss'd by the breeze, luxuriant hung, 
 Soft chrysoHte with em'ralds strung. ' 
 ' Try we, said Erjun indiscreet. 
 If yon proud fruit be sharp or sweet ; 
 My shaft its parent stalk shall wound : 
 Eeceive it, ere it reach the ground.' 
 Swift as his word, an arrow flew : 
 The dropping prize besprent with dew 
 The brothers, in contention gay. 
 Catch, and on gather'd herbage lay. 
 
 That instant scarlet lightnings flash. 
 And Jemna's waves her borders lash, 
 Crishna from Swergas 26 height descends. 
 Observant of his mortal friends : 
 Not such, as in his earliest years. 
 Among his wanton cowherd peers. 
 In Gocul or Brinddheiis 27 glades, 
 He sported with the dairy-maids ; 
 Or, having pip'd and danc'd enough, 
 CJos'd the brisk night with hlindmaii s-huff 28 ; 
 { List, antiquaries, and record 
 This pastime of the Gopia's Lord 29 J^ 
 
 2G. The heaven of Imira, or the Empyreum. 
 
 27. In the district of Maifhura, not far from Agra. 
 
 28. This is told in the Bha'fjawat. 
 
 29. Copy Nat'ii, a title of Crishna, corrcspocdiDg with NympUfjeles, an epithet of 
 Nejutune, 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 
 
 But radiant with ethereal fire : 
 Nared alone could bards inspire 
 In lofty SloJces 30 his mien .to trace, 
 And unimaginable grace. 
 With liuman voice, in human form, 
 He mildly spake, and hush'd the storm : 
 ' mortals, ever prone to ill 1 
 Too rashly Erjun prov'd his skill. 
 Yon fruit a pious Muny 3i owns, 
 Assistant of our heav'nly thrones. 
 The golden pulp, each month renew'd, 
 Supplies him w^th ambrosial food, 
 Should he the daring archer curse. 
 Not Mentra 32 deep, nor magic verse. 
 Your gorgeous palaces could save 
 From flames, your embers, from the wave 33/ 
 The princes, whom th' immod'rate blaze 
 Forbids their sightless eyes to raise, 
 "With doubled hands his aid implore, 
 And vow submission to his lore. 
 ' One remedy, and simply one, 
 Or take, said he, or be undone : 
 Let each his crimes or faults confess. 
 The greatest name, omit the less ; 
 Your actions, words, e'en thoughts reveal ; 
 No part must Draupady conceal : 
 So shall the fruit, as each applies 
 The faithful charm, ten dibits rise ; 
 
 30. Tetrasticks without rhyin».. • 
 
 31. An inspired Writer : tioenty are so called 
 
 32. Incantation, 
 
 33. This will receive illustration from a passage \nih.QRamayen : ' Even he, who cannot 
 be slain by the ponderous arms of Indra, nor by those of CkCly, nor by the terrible Checra 
 Cor Discus), of Vishm, shall be destroyed, 4f a Brahmen execrate him, as if lie were 
 
 consumed hyfire.' 
 
THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 Till, if the dame be frank and true, 
 It join the branch, where late it grew.' 
 He smil'd and shed a transient gleam ; 
 Then vanish'd like a morning dream. 
 
 Now, long entranc'd, each waking brother 
 Star'd with aimazement on another. 
 Their consort's cheek forgot its glow, 
 And pearly tears began to flow ; 
 When Yudishteir, high-gifted man. 
 His plain confession thus began. 
 
 ' Inconstant fortune's wreathed smiles, 
 Duryodhen's rage, Duryodhen's wiles, 
 Fires rais'd for this devoted head, 
 E'en poison for my brethren spread. 
 My wand'rings through wild scenes of wo, 
 And persecuted life, you know. 
 Rude wassailers defil'd my halls. 
 And riot shook my palace-walls, 
 My treasures wasted. This and more 
 With resignation calm I bore ; 
 But, when the late-descending god 
 Gave all I wish'd with soothing nod, 
 When, by his counsel and his aid, 
 Our banners danc'd, our clarions bray'd 
 (Be this my greatest crime confess'd). 
 Revenge sate ruler in my breast : 
 I panted for the tug of arms. 
 For skirmish hot, for fierce alarms ; 
 Then had my shaft Duryodhen rent^ 
 This heart had glow'd with sweet content.' . 
 
 He ceas'd : the living gold upsprung. 
 And from the bank ten cubits huno^. 
 
 Embolden'd by this fair success, 
 Next Erjun hasten'd to confess : 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 
 
 ' When I with Asivatthdma fought ; 
 My noose the fell assassin caught"; 
 My spear transfix'd him to the ground : 
 His'giant limbs firm cordage bound : 
 His holy thread extorted awe 
 Spar'd by religion and by law ; 
 But, when his murd'rous hands I view'd 
 In blameless kindred gore imbued, 
 Fury my boiling bosom sway'd, 
 And Eage unsheath'd my willing blade : 
 Then, had not Crishnas arm divine 
 With gentle touch suspended mine, 
 This hand a Brahmen had destroy'd. 
 And vultures with his blood been cloy'd.* 
 
 The fruit, forgiving Erjun^s dart. 
 Ten cubits rose with eager start. 
 
 Flush'd with some tints of honest shame, 
 Bheima to his confession came : 
 
 ' Twas at a feast for battles won 
 From Dhritera shtras guileful son. 
 High on the board in vases pil'd 
 All vegetable nature smil'd : 
 Proud Aiiaras 34 his beauties told, 
 His verdant crown and studs of gold. 
 To Dallim 35, whose soft rubies laugh'd 
 Bursting with juice, that gods have quass'd ; 
 Bipe Kellas 36 here in heaps were seen, 
 Kellas, the golden and the green, 
 With Ambas 37r^riz'd on distant coasts. 
 Whose birth the fertile Ganga boasts : 
 (Some gleam like silver, some outshine 
 Wrought ingots from Besoaras mine) : 
 Corindas there, too sharp alone, 
 
 34. Ananas. 35. Pomegranate. 36. Plantains. 37. Mangos. , 
 
 B 
 
10 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 With honey mix'd, impurpled shone ; 
 Talsam 38 his liquid crystal spread 
 Pluck'd from high Taras tufted head ; 
 Round Jamas ^9 delicate as fair, 
 Like rose-water perfum'd the air ; 
 Bright salvers high-rais'd Comlas ^o held 
 Like topazes, which Am^it ^i swell'd ; 
 "While some delicious Attas ^2 bore, 
 And Catels 43 warm, a sugar'd store ; 
 Others with Belas grains were heap'd. 
 And mild Papayas honey-steep'd ; 
 Or sweet Ajeirs ^4 the red and pale. 
 Sweet to the taste and in the gale. 
 Here mark'd we purest basons fraught 
 "With sacred cream and fam'd Joghrat ; 
 Nor saw we not rich bowls contain 
 The Chaivlas 45 light nutritious grain, 
 Some virgin-like in native pride. 
 And some with strong Haldea 46 dyed. 
 Some tasteful to dull palates made 
 If Merich 47 lend his fervent aid. 
 Or Langa 48 shap'd like od'rous nails, 
 "Whose scent o'er groves of spice prevails. 
 Or Adda 49, breathing gentle heat, 
 Or Joutery ^o both warm and sweet. 
 Supiary ^^ next ( in Pa na ^2 chew'd. 
 And Gatha ^^, with strong pow'rs endued, 
 Mix'd with Elachy's 54 glowing seeds, 
 • Which some remoter climate breeds). 
 Near Jeifel ^^ sate, like Jeifel fram'd 
 Though not for equal fragrance nam'd : 
 
 38. Palmyra-fruit. 39. Rose-apples. 40. Oranges. 41. The Hindu Nectar. 42. Custard- 
 applei^. 43. Jaik-fruit. 44. Guayavas. 45. Rice. 46. Turmeric 47. Indian Pepper. 
 48. Cloves. 49. Ginger, 50. Mace. 51. Areca-nut. 52. Betel-leaf. 
 
 53, AYhat we call Japau-carth, 54. CVdamums, 55. Nutmeg, 
 
THE IIIJvDU TVIFE. 11 
 
 Last, Na ryal ^^, whom all ranks esteem, 
 
 Pour'd in full cups his dulcet stream : 
 
 Long 1 survey'd the doubtful board . 
 
 With each high delicacy stor'd ; 
 
 Then freely gratified my soul, 
 
 From many a dish, and many a bowl, 
 
 Till health was lavish'd, as my time : 
 
 Intemperance was my fatal crime.' 
 
 Uprose the fruit ; and now mid-way 
 Suspended shone like blazing day. 
 
 Nacal then spoke : (a blush o'erspread 
 His cheeks, and conscious droop'd his head) : 
 ' Before Duryo dlien, ruthless king. 
 Taught his fierce darts in air to sing, 
 "With bright-arm'd ranks, by Cnshna sent. 
 Elate from Indraprest ^"^ I went 
 Through Eastern realms ; and vanquish'd all 
 From rough Almo ra to Nipa I. 
 Where ev'ry mansion, new or old, 
 Flam'd with Barbaric gems and gold. 
 Here shone with pride the regal stores 
 On iv'ry roofs, and cedrine floors ; 
 There diadems of price unknown 
 Blaz'd with each all-attractins: stone ; 
 Firm diamonds, like fix'd honour true. 
 Some pink, and some of yellow hue. 
 Some black, yet not the less esteem'd ; 
 The rest like tranquil Jemna gleam'd, 
 When in her be'd the Gopia lave 
 Betray'd by the pellucid wave. 
 Like raging fire the ruby glow'd. 
 Or soft, but radiant, water show'd ; 
 
 56. Cocoanut. 57. Dehly. 
 
12 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 Pure amethysts, in richest ore 
 Oft found, a purple vesture wore ; 
 Sapphirs, like yon etherial plain ; 
 Em'ralds, like Peipel ^8 fresh with rain ; 
 Gay topazes, translucent gold ; 
 Pale chrysolites of softer mould ; 
 Pam'd beiyls, like the surge marine. 
 Light-azure mix'd with modest green ; 
 Refracted ev'ry varying dye. 
 Bright as yon bow, that girds the sky. '^ 
 Here opals, which all hues unite. 
 Display' d their many-tinctur'd light. 
 With turcoises divinely blue 
 (Though doubts arise, where first they grew, 
 Whether chaste elephantine bone 
 By min'rals ting'd, or native stone). 
 And pearls unblemish'd, such as deck 
 JBhava nijs ^^ wrist or Lecshmys ^ neck. 
 Each castle ras'd, each city storm'd. 
 Vast loads of pillag'd wealth I form'd, 
 Not for my coffers ; though they bore, 
 As you decreed, my lot and more. 
 Too pleas'd the brilliant heap I stor'd. 
 Too charming seeoi'd the guarded hoard : 
 An odious vice this heart assail' d ; 
 Base Avrice for a time prevail'd. 
 
 Th' enchanted orb ten cubits flew. 
 Strait as the shaft, which Erjun drew. 
 
 Sehdio, with youthful ardour bold^. 
 Thus, penitent, his failings told : 
 ' From clouds, by folly rais'd, these eyes 
 Experience clear'd, and made me wise ; 
 For, when the crash of batt]c roar'd. 
 
 58. A sacred tree like an Asirin. 59, The Indian Venus. GO. The Lidian Ckres. 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 13 
 
 When death rain'd blood from spear and sword, 
 
 When, in the tempest of alarms, 
 
 Horse roll'd on horse, arms clash'd with arms, 
 
 Such acts I saw by others' done. 
 
 Such perils brav'd, such trophies won, 
 
 That, while my patriot bosom glow'd. 
 
 Though some faint skill, some strength I show'd, 
 
 And, no dull gazer on the field. 
 
 This hero slew, that forc'd to yield, 
 
 Yet, meek hflmility, to thee. 
 
 When Erjun fought, low sank my knee : 
 
 But, ere the din of war began. 
 
 When black'ning cheeks just mark'd the man, 
 
 Myself invincible I deem'd, 
 
 And great, without a rival, seem'd. 
 
 Whene'er I sought the sportful plain, 
 
 No youth of all the martial train 
 
 With arm so strong or eye so true 
 
 The CJiecras ^i pointed circle threw ; 
 
 None Avhen the polish'd cane we bent. 
 
 So far the light-wmg'd arrow sent ; 
 
 None from the broad elastic reed. 
 
 Like me, gave Agnyastra ^^ speed. 
 
 Or spread its flames with nicer art 
 
 In many an unextinguish'd dart ; 
 
 Or, when in imitated fight 
 
 We sported till departing light. 
 
 None saw me to the ring advance 
 
 With falchion keen or quiv'ring lance, 
 
 Whose force my rooted seat could shake. 
 
 Or on my steed impression make : 
 
 No charioteer, no racer fleet 
 
 61. A radiated metalline ring, used as a missile weapon. 
 
 62. Fire-arms, or rcckets, early known in India. 
 
1 4 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 O'ertook my wheels or rapid feet. 
 
 Next, when the woody heights we sought, 
 
 With madd'ning elephants I fought : 
 
 In vain their high-priz'd tusks they gnash'd ; 
 
 Their trunked heads my Geda 63 mash'd. 
 
 No buffalo, with phrensy strong, 
 
 Could bear my clatt'ring thunder long : 
 
 No pard or tiger, from the wood 
 
 Reluctant brought, this arm withstood. 
 
 Pride in my heart his mansion fix'd. 
 
 And with pure drops black poison mix'd. 
 
 Swift rose the fruit, exalted now 
 Ten cubits from his natal bough. 
 
 Fair Draupady, with soft delay, 
 Then spake : ' Heav'n's mandate I obey ; 
 Though nought, essential to be known, 
 Has heav'n to learn, or I to own. 
 When scarce a damsel, scarce a child. 
 In early bloom your handmaid smil'd. 
 Love of the World her fancy mov'd, 
 Vain pageantry her heart approv'd : 
 Her form, she thought, and lovely mien. 
 All must admire, when all had seen : 
 A thirst of pleasure and of praise 
 (With shame I speak) engross'd my days ; 
 Nor were my night-thoughts, I confess. 
 Free from solicitude for dress ; 
 How best to bind my flowing hair 
 With art, yet with an artless air . 
 (My hair, like musk in scent and hue ; 
 Oh ! blacker far and sweeter too) ; 
 In what nice braid or glossy curl 
 To fix a diamond or a peari, 
 
 63. A mace, or club. 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 15 
 
 And where to smooth the love-spread toils 
 With nard or jasmin's fragrant oils ; 
 How to adjust the golden Tele ^^, > 
 
 And most adorn my forehead sleek ; 
 -* What Condcds ^^ should emblaze my ears. 
 Like Seitas waves ^^ or Seitas tears ^-^ ; 
 HoAv elegantly to dispose 
 Bright circlets for my well-form'd nose ; 
 "With strings of rubies how to deck, 
 Or em'rald rows, my stately neck, 
 While some that ebon tow'r embrac'd 
 Some pendent sought my slender waist ; 
 How next my purfled veil to chuse 
 From silken stores of varied hues ; 
 Which would attract the rovino- view, 
 Pink, violet, purple, orange, blue ; 
 The loveliest mantle to select, 
 Or unembellish'd or bedeck 'd ; 
 And how my twisted scarf to place 
 With most inimitable grace ; 
 (Too thin its warp, too fine its woof, 
 For eyes of males not beauty-proof) ; 
 What skirts the mantle best would suit, 
 Ornate with stars or tissued fruit. 
 The flow'r-embroider'd or the plain 
 With silver or with golden vein ; 
 The Chury ^^ bright, which gayly shows 
 Fair objects, aptly to compose ; 
 How each smooth arm and each soft wrist 
 By richest Cosecs ^^ might be kiss'd ; 
 
 64. Properly Teica, an ornament of gold, placed above the nose. 65. Pendents. 
 
 66. Seita' Cund, or the Pool oiSeita\ the wife of RAM/_is the name given to the wonder- 
 ful spring ^t Mengeir, with boiling water of exqusite clearness and purity. 
 
 67. Her tears, when she was made capti'^e by the giant Eaivdn. 
 68.. A small mirror worn in a ring, 69. Bracelets* 
 
IG THE ENCHANTED FRUIT; OR, 
 
 \Vliilc some, my taper ankles round, 
 With sunny radiance ting'd the ground. 
 O waste of many a precious hour ! 
 O Vanity, how vast thy poAv'r !' 
 
 Cubits twice four th' ambrosial flew, 
 Still from its branch disjoin'd by two. 
 
 Each husband now, with Avild surprise. 
 His compeers and his consort eyes ; 
 Wlien Yiidishtelr : ' Thy female breast 
 Some faults, perfidious, hath suppressed. 
 Oh ! give the close-lock'd secret room, 
 Unfold its bud, expand its bloom ; 
 Lest, sinking Avith our crumbled halls. 
 We see red flames devour their walls.' 
 Abash'd, yet with a decent pride, 
 Firm Draiipady the fact denied ; 
 Till, through an arched alley green, 
 The limit of that sacred scene. 
 She saw the dreaded Muny go 
 With steps majestically slow ; 
 Then said : (a stifled sigh she stole. 
 And show'd the conflict of her soul 
 By broken speech and flutt'ring heart. 
 One trifle more I must impart : 
 A Brahmen learn'd, of pure intent 
 And look demure, one morn you sent. 
 With me, from Sanscrit old, to read 
 Each high Purdn 70 each holy Veid. 
 ■ His thread, which Brehmd's lineage shoAv'd' ! 
 O'er his left shoulder graceful flow'd ; 
 Of Crishna and his nymphs he redde, 
 How with nine maids the dance he led ; 
 How they ador'd, and he repaid 
 
 70. A Mythological autl Historical Toeui. 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 17 
 
 Their homage in the sylvan shade. • 
 
 While this gay tale my spirits cheer'd. 
 
 So keen the Pendit's eyes appear'd, 
 
 So sweet his voice — a blameless fire 
 
 This bosom could not but inspire. 
 
 Briofht as a God he seem'd to stand : 
 
 The rev'rend volume left his hand, 
 
 With mine he press'd' — With deep despair 
 
 Brothers on brothers wildly stare : 
 
 From Erjun Sew a wrathful glance ; 
 
 Tow'rd them they saw their dread advance ; 
 
 Then, trembling, breathless, pale with fear, 
 
 ' Hear, said the matron, calmly hear ! 
 
 By Tulsy's leaf the truth I speak — 
 
 The Brahmen only kiss'd my cheek/ 
 
 Strait its full height the wonder rose. 
 Glad with its native branch to close. 
 
 Now to the walk approach'd the Sage 
 Exulting in his verdant age : 
 His hands, that touch'd his front, express'd 
 Due rev'rence to each princely guest. 
 Whom to his rural board he led 
 In simple delicacy spread. 
 With curds their palates to regale, 
 And cream-cups from the Gopia's pail. 
 
 Could you, ye Fair, like this black wife. 
 Restore us to primeval life, 
 And bid that apple, pluck' d for Eve 
 By him, who migjit all wives deceive. 
 Hang from its parent bough once more 
 Divine and perfect, as before. 
 Would you confess your little faults ? 
 (Great ones were never in. your thoughts) ; 
 Would you the secret wish unfold. 
 
1 8 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 r 
 
 Or in your heart's full casket hold ? 
 Would you disclose your inmost mind, 
 And speak plain truth, to bless mankind ? 
 
 ' What ! said the Guardian of our realm, 
 With waving crest and fiery helm, 
 ' What ! are the fair, whose heav'nly smiles 
 Rain glory through my cherish' d isles, 
 Are they less virtuous or less true 
 Than Indian dames of sooty hue ? 
 No, by these arms. The cold surmise 
 And doubt injurious vainly rise. 
 Yet dares a bard, who better knows. 
 This point distrustfully propose ; 
 Vain fabler now ! though oft before 
 His harp has cheer' d my sounding shore.' 
 
 With brow austere the martial maid 
 Spoke, and majestic trod the glade : 
 To that fell cave her course she held, 
 Where Scandal, bane of mortals, dwell' d. 
 Outstretch'd on filth the pest she found, 
 Black fetid venom streaming round : 
 A gloomy light just seiVd to show 
 The darkness of the den below. 
 Britannia with resistless might 
 Soon drasfff'd him from his darlinor nio^ht : 
 The snakes, that o'er his body curl'd, 
 And flung his poison through the world, 
 ' Confounded with the flash of day, 
 Hiss'd horribly a hellish lay. 
 His eyes with flames and blood suffus'd. 
 Long to th' ethereal beam unus'd, 
 Fierce in their gory sockets roll'd ; 
 And desperation made him bold : 
 Plcas'd with the thought of human woes, 
 
THE HINDU WIFE. 1? 
 
 Oil scaly dragon feet he rose. 
 Thus, when Asurs with impious rage, 
 Durst horrid war with Devta's wage, 
 And darted many a burning mass 
 E'en on the brow of gemm'd Caila s, 
 High o'er the rest, on serpents rear'd. 
 The grisly king of Deits appear'd. 
 
 The nymph beheld the fiend advance, 
 And couch'd her far-extending lance : 
 Dire drops he threw ; th' infernal tide 
 Her helm and silver hauberk dyed : 
 Her moonlike shield before her hung ; 
 The monster struck, the monster stung : 
 Her spear with many a griding wound 
 Fast nail'd him to the groaning ground. 
 The wretch, from juster vengeance free. 
 Immortal bom by heav'n's decree, 
 "With chains of adamant secur'd. 
 Deep in cold gloom she left immur'd„ 
 
 Now reign at will, victorious Fair, 
 In British, or in Indian, air ! 
 Still with each envying flow'r adorn 
 Your tresses radiant as the morn ; 
 Still let each Asiatic dye 
 Hich tints for your gay robes supply ; 
 Still through the dance's laby'rinth float, 
 And swell the sweetly-lengthen'd note ; 
 Still, on proud steeds or glitt'ring cars, 
 Kise on the course like beamy stars ; 
 And, when charm' d circles round you close 
 Of rhyming bards and smiling beaux, 
 Whilst all with eager looks contend 
 Their wit or worth to recommend, 
 
20 THE ENCHANTED FRUIT ; OR, 
 
 Still let your mild, yet piercing, eyes 
 Impartially adjudge the prize. 
 
 ■00- 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 C A M D E 0. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 T> 
 
 HE Hindil God, to whom the following poem is addressed, 
 appears evidently the same with the Grecian Eros and the 
 Roman Cupido ; but the Indian description of his person and 
 arms, his family, attendants, and attributes, has new and pecu- 
 liar beauties. 
 
 According to the mythology of Hindusta n, he was the son 
 of Maya, or the general attracting power, and married to Betty 
 or Affection ; and his bosom friend is Bessent or Spring : he is 
 represented as a beautiful youth, sometimes conversing with his 
 mother and consort in the midst of his gardens and temples ; 
 sometimes riding by moonlight on a parrot or lory, and attend- 
 ed by dancing-girls or nymphs, the foremost of whom bears 
 his colours, which are a Jish on a red ground. His favourite 
 place of resort is a large tract of country round Agra, and prin- 
 cipally the plains of Matra, where Krishen also and the nine 
 GopiA, who are clearly the Apollo and Muses of the Greeks, 
 usually spend the night with music and dance. His bow of 
 sugar-cane or flowers, with a string of bees, and his Jive arrows, 
 each pointed with an Indian blossom of a heating quality, are 
 allegories equally new and beautiful. He has at least twenty- 
 three names, most of which are introduced in the hymn : that 
 oijCa m or Ca ma signifies desire, a sense which it also bears in 
 
22 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 ancient and modern Persian ; and it is possible, that the words 
 Dipuc and Cupid, which have the satne signification, may have 
 the same origin ; since we know, that the old Iletruscmis, from 
 whom great part of the Roman language and religion was 
 derived, and whose system had a near affinity with that of the 
 Persians and Indians, used to write their lines alternately for- 
 wards and backwards, as furrows are made by the plough ; and, 
 though the two last letters of Cupido may be only the gram- 
 matical termination, as in libido and eapedo, yet the primary 
 root of cu2no is contained in the three first letters. The seventh 
 stanza alludes to the bold attempt of this deity to wound the 
 great God Mahadeo, for which he was punished by a flame 
 consuming his corporeal nature and reducing him to a mental 
 essence ; and hence his chief dominion is over the minds of 
 mortals, of such deities as he is permitted to subdue. 
 
 •00- 
 
THE HYMN. 
 
 W, 
 
 HAT potent God from Agras orient bow'rs 
 Floats thro' the lucid air, whilst livins- flow'rs 
 "With sunny twine the vocal arbours wreathe, 
 And gales eiTamour'd heav'nly fragrance breathe ? 
 Hail pow'r unknown ! for at thy beck . 
 
 Vales and groves their bosoms deck, 
 
 And ev'ry laughing blossom dresses 
 
 With gems of dew his musky tresses. 
 I feel, I feel thy genial flame divine, 
 And hallow thee and kiss thy shrine, 
 
 "Knowst thou not me V Celestial sounds I hear ! 
 " Knowst thou not me ?" Ah, spare a mortal ear ! 
 " Behold" — My swimming eyes entranc'd I raise. 
 But oh ! they shrink before th' excessive blaze. 
 
 Yes, son of Maya, yes, I know 
 
 Thy bloomy shafts and cany bow. 
 
 Cheeks with youthful glory beaming, 
 
 Locks in braids ethereal streaming, 
 Thy scaly standard, thy mysterious arms. 
 And all thy pains and all thy charms. 
 
 God of each lovely sight, each lovely sound. 
 Soul-kindling, world-inflaming, stary-crown'd. 
 Eternal Cd;ina ! Or doth Smara bright, 
 Or proud Ananga give thee more delight ? 
 
 Whate'er thy seat, whate'er thy name. 
 
 Seas, earth, and air, thy reign proclaim : 
 
 Wreathy smiles and roseate pleasures 
 
 Ai'e thy richest, sweetest treasures. 
 
24 THE HYMN. 
 
 All animals to thee their tribute bring, 
 And hail thee universal king. 
 
 Thy consort mild, Affection ever true, 
 Graces thy side, her vest of glowing hue, 
 And in her train twelve blooming girls advance, 
 Touch golden strings and knit the mirthful dance. 
 
 Thy dreaded implements they bear. 
 
 And wave them in the scented air. 
 
 Each Avith pearls her neck adorning. 
 
 Brighter than the tears of morning. * 
 Thy crimson ensign, which before them flies, 
 Decks with new stars the sapphire skies. 
 
 God of the flow'ry shafts and flow'ry bow, 
 Delight of all above and all below ! 
 Thy lov'd companion, constant from his birth, 
 In heav'n clep'd Bessent, and gay Spring on earth. 
 
 Weaves thy green robe and flaunting bow'rs, 
 
 And from thy clouds draws balmy show'rs, 
 
 He with fresh arrows fills thy quiver, 
 
 (Sweet the gift and sweet the giver !) 
 And bids the many-plumed warbling throng 
 Burst the pent blossoms with their song. 
 
 He bends the luscious cane, and twists the string 
 "With bees, how sweet ! but ah, how keen their sting ! 
 He with five flow'rets tips thy ruthless darts. 
 Which thro' five senses pierce enraptur d hearts : 
 
 Strong Chumpa, rich in od'rous gold, 
 • Warm Amer, nurs'd in heav'nly mould. 
 
 Dry Nagkeser in silver smiling. 
 
 Hot Kiticum our sense beguiling. 
 And last, to kindle fierce the scorching flame, 
 Loveshaft,, which gods bright Bela name. 
 
 Can men resist thy pow'r, when Krishen yields, 
 Krishen, who still in Matras holy fields 
 
HYMN. 25 
 
 • 
 
 Tunes harps immortal, and to strains divine 
 Dances by moonlight with the Gopia nine ? 
 
 But, when thy daring argii untam'd 
 
 At Mahadeo a loveshaft aim'd, 
 
 Heav'n shook, and, smit with stony wonder, 
 
 Told his deep dread in bursts of thunder, 
 Whilst on thy beauteous limbs an azure fire 
 Blaz'd forth, which never must expire. 
 
 O thou for ^ges born, yet ever young. 
 For ages may thy Bramins lay be sung ! 
 And, when thy lory spreads his em'rald wings 
 To waft thee high above the tow'rs of kings. 
 
 Whilst o'er thy throne the moon's pale light 
 
 Pours her soft radiance thro' the night, 
 
 And to each floating cloud discovers 
 
 The haunts of blest or joyless lovers, 
 Thy mildest influence to thy bard impart. 
 To warm, but not consume, his heart. 
 
 W 
 
TWO HYMNS 
 
 TO 
 P R A C R I T I 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 In all our conversations with learned Hindus we find them 
 enthusiastic admirers of Poetry, which they consider as a divine 
 art, that had been practised for numberless ages in heaven, before 
 it was revealed on earth by Va lmi o, whose great Heroic Poem 
 is fortunately preserved : the Brahmans of course prefer that 
 poetry, which they believe to have been actually inspired ; while 
 the Vaidyas, who are in general perfect grammarians and good 
 poets, but are not suffered to read any of the sacred writings except 
 the Ayurveda, or Body 0/ JfecZicaZ Traces, speak with rapture of 
 their innumerable popular poems, Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic, 
 which were composed by men not literally inspired, but called, 
 metaphorically, the sons of Sereswati, orMiNERVA ; among whom 
 the Pandits of all sects, nations, and degrees are unanimous in 
 giving the prize of glory to CaIl/da'sa, who flourished in the 
 court of Vicrama^ditya, fifty-seven years before Christ. He 
 wrote several Dramas, one of which, entitled Sacontala , is in 
 my possession ; and the subject of it appears to be as interest- 
 ing as the composition is beautiful : besides these he published 
 the Meghaduta, or cloud-messenger, and the NaUdaya, or ris© 
 ■ of Nala, both elegant love-tafles ; the Raghnvansaf an Heroic 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 2-7 
 
 Poem ; and the Cuma^ra Sambhava, or birth of CCMA ra, 
 which supplied me with materiaJs for the first of the following 
 Odes. I have not indeed yet read it ; since it could not ]}<i 
 correctly copied for me during the short interval, in which it 
 is in my power to amuse myself with literature ; but I have 
 heard the story told, both in Sanscrit and Fersia7i, by many 
 Pandits, who had no communication with each other ; and their 
 outline of it coincided so perfectly, that I am convinced of its 
 correctness : that outline is here filled up, and exhibited in a 
 lyric form, partly m the Indian, partly in the Grecian, taste ; 
 and great will be my pleasure, when I can again find time for 
 such amusements, in reading the whole poem of C ali da sa, and 
 in comparing my descriptions with the original composition. To 
 anticipate the story in a preface would be to destroy the 
 interest, that may be taken in the poem ; a disadvantage attend- 
 ing all prefatoiy arguments, of which those prefixed to the 
 several books of Tasso, and to the Dramas of Metastasio, are 
 obvious instances ; but, that any interest may be taken in the 
 two hymns addressed to Pracriti, under different names, it is 
 necessary to render them intelligible by a previous explanation 
 of the mythological allusions, which could not but occur in 
 them. 
 
 IswARA or I SA, and I sa ni or I si , are unquestionably the 
 Osiris and Isis of Egypt ; for, though neither a resemblance 
 of names, nor a similarity of character, would separately prove 
 the identity of Indian and Egyptian Deities, yet, when they 
 both concur, with the addition of numberless corroboratino* 
 circumstances, they form a proof little short of demonstration. 
 The female divinity, in the mythological systems of the East 
 represents the active power of the male ; and that I/si*^ means 
 active nature, appears evidently from the word s^a^cta Avhich 
 is derived from sa cti, or power, and applied to those Hindus 
 who direct their adoration principally to that goddess : this 
 feminine character of Pracriti, or created nature, is so familiar 
 
28 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 .in most languages, and even in our own, that the gravest 
 English ^vriters, on the most serious subjects of religion and 
 philosophy, speak of her operations, as if she were actually 
 an animated being ; but such personifications are easily mis- 
 conceived by the multitude, and have a strong tendency to 
 polytheism. The principal operations of nature are, not the 
 absolute annihilation and new creation of what we call material 
 suhstances, but the temporary extinction and reproduction, or, 
 rather in one word, the transr^iutation, of forms ; whence the 
 epithet Polymorphos is aptly given to ni^ture by European 
 philosophers : hence Iswara, Siva, Hara (for those are his 
 names and near a thousand more), united with 1 si , represent 
 the secondary causes, whatever they may be, of natural pheno- 
 mena, and principally those of temporary destruction and regene- 
 o^ation ; but the Indian Isis appears in a variety of characters, 
 especially in those of Pa'rvati , Ca l/, Durga , and Bha'vani'^ 
 which bear a strong resemblance to the Juno of Homer, to 
 Hecate, to the armed Pallas, and to the Lucretian Venus. 
 
 The name Pa rvati took its rise from a wild poetical fiction. 
 HiMA^LAYA, or the Mansion of Snow, is the title given by the 
 Hindus to that vast chain of mountains, which limits India to 
 the north, and embraces it with its eastern and western arms, 
 both extending to the ocean ; the former of those arms is called 
 Chandrasechara, or the Moons Roch ; and the second, which 
 reaches as far west as the mouths of the Indus, was named by 
 the ancients Monies Parveti These hills are held sacred by the 
 Indians who suppose them to be the terrestrial haunt of the 
 God liiWARA. The mountain Ilinidlaya, being personified, is 
 represented as a powerful monarch, whose wife was Me'na^: 
 their dauo-hter is named Pa'rvat/, or Mountain-born, and Dur- 
 GA^ or of difficult access; but the Hindus believe her to have 
 been married to Siva in a pre-existent state, when she bore the 
 name of Sat/.- The daughter of Himalaya had two sons ; 
 Gane's'a, or the Lord of Spirits, adored as the wisest of Dei- 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 29* 
 
 ties, and always invoked at the beginning of every literaiy work, 
 and CuMA ra, Scanda, or Ca^ktice^ya, commander of the 
 celestial armies. 
 
 The pleasing fiction of Ca'^^a, the Indian Cupid, and his 
 friend Vasanta, or the Spring, has been the subject of another 
 peom ; and here it must be remembered, that the God of Love 
 is named also Smara, Candarpa, and Ananga. One of his 
 arrows is called Melliccl, the Nyctanthes of our Botanists, who 
 very unadvisedly reject the vernacular names of most Asiatic 
 plants : it is beautifully introduced by Ca'lida^a into this 
 lively couplet : 
 
 MellicdmuGuU hhdti gunjanmattamadhuvratah, 
 Praydne panchaodnasya sancliamdp urayanniva. 
 * The intoxicated bee shines and murmurs in the fresh-blown 
 ■Mellicd, like him who gives breath to a white conch in the 
 procession of the God with five arrows.' 
 
 A critic, to whom Ca li da sa repeated this verse, observed 
 that the comparison was not exact : since the bee sits on the 
 blossom itself, and does not murmur at the end of the tube 
 like him who blows a conch : ^ I was aware of that, said the 
 poet, and, therefore, described the bee as intoxicated : a drunken 
 musician would blow the shell at the wrong end :' There was more 
 than \vit in this answer : it was a just rebuke to a dull critic ; for 
 poetry delights in general images, and is so far from beino- a 
 perfect imitation, that a scrupulous exactness of descriptions and 
 similes, by leaving nothing for the imagination to supply, 
 never fails to diminish or destroy the pleasure of every reader, 
 who has an imagination to be gratified. 
 
 It may here be observed, that Nymjyhwa, not Lotos, is the 
 generic TiRiooe in Eurojoe of the flower consecrated to Isis : the 
 Persians know by the name of Nililfer that species of it, Avhich 
 the Botanists ridiculously call Kelumho, and which is remark- 
 able for its curious pericarjmim., where each of the seeds con- 
 tains in miniature the leaves of a perfect vegetable. The lotos 
 
30 THE ARGFMKXT 
 
 of Homer was probably the sugar-cane, and that of Linnjius is 
 a papilionaceous plant ; but he gives the same name to another 
 species of the Nymphcea ; and the word is so constantly applied 
 among us in India to the Nilufer, that any other would bo 
 hardly intelligible : the blue lotos grows in Cashmir and -in 
 Persia, but not in Bengal, where we see only the red and the 
 ivhite ; and hence occasion is taken to feign, that the lotos of 
 Hindustan was dyed crimson by the blood of Siva. 
 
 CuvE RA, mentioned in the fourteenth stanza, is the God of 
 Wealth, supposed to reside in a magnificent ^city, called Alacd ; 
 and Vrihaspati, or the Genius of the planet Jupiter, is the 
 preceptor of the Gods in Swerga or the firmament : he is usually 
 represented as their orator, when any message is carried from 
 them to one of the three superior Deities. 
 
 The lamentations of Reti , the wife of Cama, fill a whole 
 book in the Sanscrit poem, as I am informed by my teacher, 
 a learned Vaidya ; who is restrained only from reading the 
 book, which contains a description of the nuptials ; for the cere- 
 monies of a marriaofe where Brahma himself officiated as the 
 father of the bridegroom, are too holy to be known by any but 
 Bra limans. 
 
 The achievements of Durga in her martial character as 
 the patroness of Virtue, and her battle with a demon in the 
 shape of a buffalo, are the subject of many episodes in the 
 Pura nas and Ca vyas, or sacred and popular poems ; but a 
 full account of them would have destroyed the unity of the 
 Ode, and they are barely alluded to in the last stanza. 
 
 It Seemed proper to change the measure, when the goddess 
 was' to be addressed as Bhava ni, or the power of fecundity ; 
 but such a change, though very common in Sanscrit, has its 
 inconveniences in European poetry : a distinct Hymn is there- 
 fore appropriated to her in that capacity ; for the explanation 
 of which we need only premise, that Lacshmi is the Goddess 
 of Abundance ; that the Cetaca is a fragrant and beautiful 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 31 
 
 plant of the Dicecian kind, known to Botanists by the name of 
 Pandanus ; and that the Du rgStsava, or great festival of 
 Bhava ni at the close of the rams, ends, in throwing the image 
 of the goddess into the Ganges or other sacred water. 
 
 I am not conscious of having left unexplained any difficult 
 allusion in the two poems ; and have only to add (lest Euroepan 
 critics should consider a few of the images as inapplicable to 
 Indian manners), that the ideas of snow and ice are familiar to 
 the Hindus ; that the mountains of Hima lay a may be clearly 
 discerned from a part of Bengal ; that the Grecian H^mus is 
 the Sanscrit word haimas, meaning snowy ; and that funeral 
 urns may be seen perpetually on the banks of the river. 
 
 The two Hymns are neither translations from any other 
 poems, nor imitations of any ; and have nothing of Pindar in 
 them except the measures, which are nearly the same, syllable 
 for syllable, with those of the first and second Nemean Odes : 
 more musical stanzas might perhaps have been formed ; but, in 
 every art, variety and novelty are considerable sources of 
 pleasure. The style and manner of Pindar have been greatly 
 mistaken ; and, that a distinct idea of them maybe conceived by 
 such, as have not access to that inimitable poet in his own 
 language, I cannot refrain from subjoining the first Nemean 
 Ode* not only in the same measure as nearly as possible, but 
 almost word for word, with the original ; .those epithets and 
 phrases only being necessarily added, which are printed in 
 Italic letters. 
 
 • See the first Nemean ode of Pindsir. 
 
 > •♦^ < 
 
THE HYMN 
 
 TO 
 D U R G A\ 
 
 I 1. 
 
 FkOM thee begins the'solemn air, 
 Ador'd Gane'sa^; next, thy sire we praise 
 (Him, from whose red clust'ring hair 
 A new-born crescent sheds propitious rays. 
 Fair as Ganga 's curHng foam). 
 Dread I'swara ; who loVd o'er awful mountains. 
 Rapt in prescience deep, to roam, 
 But chiefly those, whence holy rivers gush. 
 Bright from their secret fountains. 
 And o'er the realms of Brahma^ rush. 
 
 I. 2. 
 Bock above rock they ride sublime. 
 And lose their summits in blue fields of day, 
 
 Fashion'd first, when rolling time. 
 
 Vast infant, in his golden cradle lay, 
 ■ Bidding endless ages run 
 
 And wreath their giant heads in snows eternal 
 
 Gilt by each revolving sun ; 
 
 Though neither morning beam, ncr noontide glare, 
 
 In wintry sign or vernal. 
 
 Their adamantine strength impair ; 
 
THE HTMN TO DURGA . 33 
 
 I. 3. 
 
 Nor e'en the fiercest summer heat 
 
 Could thrill the palace, where their Monarch reign'd 
 
 On his frost-impearled seat, 
 
 (Such height had unremitted virtue gain'd !) 
 
 HiMA LATA, to whom a lovely child, 
 
 Sweet Parvati, sage Me na bore, 
 
 Who now, in earliest bloom, saw heav'n adore 
 
 Her charms ; earth languish, till she smil'd, 
 
 IT. 1, 
 But she to love no tribute paid ; 
 Great Iswara her pious cares engag'd : 
 Him, who Gods and fiends dismay 'd. 
 She sooth'd with off'rings meek, when most he rag'd. 
 On a mom, when, edg'd with light, 
 The lake-born flow js their sapphire cups expanded 
 Laughing at the scatter'd night, 
 A vale remote and silent pool she sought, 
 Smooth-footed, lotos-handed. 
 And braids of sacred blossoms wrought ; 
 
 11. 2. 
 Not for her neck, which, unadorn'd, 
 Bade envying antelopes their beauties hide : 
 Art she knew not, or she scorn'd ; 
 Nor had her language e'en a name for pride. 
 To the God, who, fix'd in thought, 
 Sat in a crystal cave new worlds designing, 
 Softly sweet her gift she brought, 
 And spread the garland o'er his shoulders broad, 
 Where serpents huge lay twining. 
 Whose hiss the round creation aw'd. 
 
 II. 3. 
 
 He view'd, half-smiling, half-severe, 
 
 The prostrate maid — That moment through the rocks 
 
 He, who decks the purple year, 
 
 Vasanta, vain of odorifroufl locks, 
 E 
 
34 TKI HYMN TO DURGA . 
 
 With Ca'ma, hors'd on infant breezes flew : 
 (Who knows not Ca'ma, nature's king ?) 
 Vasanta barb'd the shaft and fix'd the string ; 
 The living bow Candarpa drew. 
 
 III. 1. 
 Dire sacrilege ! The chosen reed, 
 That Smara pointed with transcendent art, 
 Glanc'd with nnimagin'd speed. 
 And ting'd its blooming barb in Siva's heart : 
 Glorious flow'r, in heav'n proclaim'd 
 Rich Mellicd, with balmy breath delicious. 
 And on earth Nyctanthes nam'd ! 
 Some drops divine, that o'er the lotos blua 
 Trickled in rills auspicious, 
 Still mark it with a crimson hue. 
 
 III. 2. 
 Soon clos'd the wound its hallow'd lips ; 
 But nature felt the pain : heav'n's blazing eye 
 Sank absorb'd in sad eclipse, 
 And meteors rare betray'd the trembling sky ; 
 When a flame, to which compar'd 
 The keenest lightnings were but idle flashes, 
 From that orb all-piercing glar'd. 
 Which in the front of wrathful Hara rolls, 
 And soon to silver ashes 
 Reduc'd th* inflamer of our souls. 
 
 III. 3. 
 Vasant, for thee a milder doom, 
 Accomphce rash, a thund'ring voice decreed ; 
 * With'ring live in joyless gloom, 
 While ten gay signs the dancing seasons lead. 
 Thy flow'rs, perennial once, now annual made, 
 The Fish and Ram shall still adorn ; 
 But, when the Bull has rear'd his ^old«n horn, 
 ShaU, like yon idling rainbow, fiwl*.' 
 
THE HYMN TO BURGA . 35 
 
 IV. 1. 
 The thunder ceas'd ; the day return'd ; 
 But Siva from terrestrial haunts had fled : , 
 
 Smit with rapt'rous love lie burn'd, 
 And sigh'd on gemm'd Caildsas viewless head. 
 Lonely down the mountain steep, 
 "With flutt ring heart, soft Parvati descended ; 
 Nor in drops of nectar'd sleep 
 Drank solace through the night, but lay alarm'd, 
 Lest her meaft gifts offended 
 The God her pow'rful beauty charm'd. 
 
 IV. 2. 
 All arts her sorr'wing damsels tried, 
 Her brow, where wrinkled anguish low'r'd, to smoothe, 
 And, her troubled soul to soothe, 
 Sagacious Me na mild reproof applied ; 
 But nor art nor counsel saofe, 
 Nor e'en her sacred parent's tender chiding, 
 Could her only pain assuage : 
 The mountain drear she sought, in mantlinor shade 
 Her tears and transports hiding, 
 And oft to her adorer pray'd. 
 
 IV. 3. 
 There on a crag, whose icy rift 
 Hurl'd night and horror o'er the pool profound, 
 That with madding eddy swift 
 Kevengeful bark'd his rugged base around. 
 The beauteous hermit sat ; but soon perceiv'd 
 A Brdhmen old before her stand. 
 His rude staff quiv'ring in his wither'd hand, 
 Who, falt'ring, ask'd for whom she griev'd. 
 
 V. 1. 
 * What graceful youth with accents mild, 
 Eyes like twin stars, and lips like early morn, 
 Has thy pensive heart beguil'd V 
 "No mortal youth," she said with modest scorn, 
 
3^ THE HTMN TO DURQA . 
 
 E'er begiiil'd my guiltless heart : 
 Him have I lost, who to these mountains hoary- 
 Bloom celestial could impart. 
 Thee I salute, thee ven'rate, thee deplore, 
 Dread Siva, source of glorj''. 
 Which on these rocks must gleam no more !" 
 
 V. 2. 
 ' Rare object of a damsel's love,' 
 The wizard bold replied, 'who, rude and wild, 
 Leaves eternal bliss above. 
 And roves o'er wastes where nature never smil'd, 
 Mounted on his milkwhite bull ! 
 Seek Indra with aerial bow victorious, 
 Who from vaSes ever full 
 Quaffs love and nectar ; seek the festive hall, 
 Rich caves, and mansion glorious 
 Of young CuvE RA, lov'd by all ; 
 
 V. 3. 
 
 But spurn that sullen wayward God, 
 
 That three- ey'd monster, hideous, fierce, untam'd, 
 
 Unattir'd, ill-girt, unshod 
 
 Such fell impiety, the nymph exclaim'd, 
 
 Who speaks, must agonize ; who hears, must die ; 
 
 Nor can this vital frame sustain 
 
 The pois'nous taint, that runs from vein to vein ; 
 
 Death may atone the blasphemy.* 
 
 VI. 1. 
 She spoke, and o'er the rifted rocks 
 Her lovely form with pious phrensy threw ; 
 But beneath her floating locks 
 And waving robes a thousand breezes flew, 
 Knitting close their silky plumes, 
 And in mid-air a downy pillow spreading ; 
 Till, in clouds of rich perfumes 
 Embalmed, they bore her to a mystic wood ; 
 
THE HYMN TO DUB^^i'^ 3T 
 
 Where streams of glory shedding, 
 The well-feign'd Brdhmen, Siva stood. 
 
 VT. 2. 
 The rest, my song conceal : 
 Unhallow'd ears the sacrilege might rue. 
 Gods alone to Gods reveal 
 In what stupendous notes th' immortals woo. 
 Straight the sons of light prepar'd 
 The nuptial feast, heav'n's opal gates unfolding, 
 Which th' empyreal araiy shar'd ; 
 And sage Hima lata shed blissful tears 
 With aged eyes beholding 
 His daughter empress of the spheres. 
 
 VI. 3. 
 Whilst ev ry lip with nectar glow'd. 
 
 The bridegroom blithe his transformation told : 
 
 Round the mirthful goblets flow'd. 
 
 And laughter free o'er plains of ether roU'd : 
 
 ' Thee too, like Vishnu, said the blushing queen. 
 
 Soft Ma ya , guileful maid, attends ; 
 
 But in delight supreme the phantasm ends ; 
 
 Love crowns the visionary scene.' 
 
 VII. 1. 
 Then rose Vrihaspati, who reigns 
 Beyond red Mangala's terrific sphere, 
 Wand'ring o'er cerulean plains : 
 
 His periods eloquent heav'n loves to hear 
 
 Soft as dew on waking flow'rs. 
 
 He told, how Ta ^iaca with snaky legions, 
 
 Envious of supernal pow'rs. 
 
 Had menac'd long old Me ru's golden head, 
 
 And Indra's beaming regions 
 
 With desolation wild had spread : 
 
 VII. 2. 
 How, when the Gods to Brahma flew 
 In routed squadrons, and his help implor'd ; 
 
3S THK HYMN TO DURQA . 
 
 " Sons, he said, from vengeance due 
 
 The fiend must wield secure his fiery sword, 
 
 (Thus th' unerring Will ordains), 
 
 Till from the Great Destroyer's pure embraces, 
 
 Knit in love's mysterious chains 
 
 "With her, who, daughter to the mountain-king. 
 
 Yon snowy mansion graces, 
 
 Coma ra, warrior-child, shall spring ; 
 
 VIL 3. 
 
 r 
 
 Who, bright in arms of heav'nly proof, 
 His crest a blazing star, his diamond mail 
 Colour'd in the rainbow's woof, 
 The rash invaders fiercely shall assail, 
 And, on a stately peacock borne, shall rush 
 Against the dragons of the deep ; 
 Nor shall his thund'ring mace insatiate sleep 
 Till their infernal chief it crush," 
 VIII. 1. 
 
 'The splendid host with solemn state 
 (Still spoke th' ethereal orator unblam'd) 
 Reason'd high in long debate ; 
 Till, through my counsel provident, they claim'd 
 Hapless Ca ma's potent aid : 
 At Indra's wish appear d the soul's inflamer. 
 And, in vernal arms array'd, 
 Engag'd (ah, thoughtless !) in the bold emprise 
 To tame wide nature's tamer, 
 , And soften Him, who shakes the skies. 
 
 VIIL 2. 
 
 See now the God, whom all ador'd, 
 
 An ashy heap, the jest of ev'ry gale ! 
 
 Loss by heav'n and earth deplor'd ! 
 
 For, love extinguish'd, earth and heav'n must faiL 
 
 Mark, how Reti bears his urn, 
 
 And tow'rd her widow'd pile with piercing ditty 
 
THE HYMN TO DURGA*^ 39* 
 
 » 
 
 Points the flames — ah, see it burn ! 
 How ill the fun'ral with the feast agrees ! 
 Come, love's pale sister, pity ; 
 Come, and the lover's wrath appease.' 
 
 VIII. 3. 
 
 Tumultuous passions, whilst he spoke, 
 
 In heav'nly bosoms mix'd their bursting fire. 
 
 Scorning frigid wisdom's yoke. 
 
 Disdain, revenge, devotion, hope, desire : 
 
 Then grief prevail'd ; but pity won the prize. 
 
 Not Siva could the charm resist : 
 
 ' Rise, holy love !' he said ; and kiss'd 
 
 The pearls, that gush'd from Durga 's eyes. 
 
 IX. 1. 
 
 That instant through the blest abode, 
 
 His youthful charms renew'd, Ananga came ; 
 
 High on em'rald plumes he rode 
 
 "With Keti brighten'd by th' eluded flame ; 
 
 Nor could young Vasanta mourn 
 
 (Officious friend !) his darling lord attending, 
 
 Though of annual beauty shorn : 
 
 ' Love-shafts enow one season shall supply, 
 
 He menac'd unoff'ending. 
 
 To rule the rulers of the sky.' 
 
 IX. 2. 
 With shouts the boundless mansion ranor ; 
 And, in sublime accord, the radiant quire 
 Strains of bridal rapture sang 
 With glowing conquest join'd and martial ire : 
 ' Spring to life, triumphant son, 
 Hell's future dread, and heav'n's eternal wonder ! 
 Helm and flaming habergeon 
 For thee, behold, immorlal artists weave. 
 And edge with keen blue thunder 
 The blade, that shall th' oppressor cleave.* • 
 
40 THE HYMN TO DURGA . 
 
 IX. 3. 
 
 O DuRGA , thou hast deign'd to shield 
 Man's feeble virtue with celestial might. 
 Gliding from yon jasper field, 
 And, on a lion borne, hast brav'd the sight ; 
 For, when -the demon Vice thy realms defied. 
 And arm'd with death each arched horn, 
 Thy golden lance, goddess mountain-born. 
 Touch but the pest — He roar'd and died. . 
 
 veoooeeewn 
 
THE HYMN 
 
 TO 
 B H A V A' N I . 
 
 _ ^ 
 
 When time was drown'd in sacred sleep, 
 And raven darkness brooded o'er the deep, 
 Reposing on primeval pillows 
 Of tossing billows. 
 The forms of animated nature lay ; 
 Till o'er the wild abyss, where love 
 Sat like a nestling dove. 
 From heav'n's dun concave shot a golden ray. 
 
 Still brighter and more bright it stream'd, 
 
 Then, like a thousand suns, resistless gleam'd ; 
 
 "Whilst on the placid waters blooming, 
 
 The sky perfuming. 
 
 An op'ning Lotos rose, and smiling spread 
 
 His azure skirts and vase of gold, 
 
 "While o'er his foliage roll'd 
 
 Drops, that impearl Bhava ni 's orient bed. 
 
 Mother of Gods, rich nature's queen, 
 
 Thy genial fire emblaz'd the bursting scene ; 
 
 For, on th' expanded blossom sitting, 
 
 "With sun-beams knitting 
 
 That mystic veil for ever unremov'd. 
 
 Thou badst the softly kindling flame 
 
 Pervade this peopled frame. 
 
 And smiles, with blushes ting'd, the work approv'd. 
 
 Goddess, around thy radiant thi-one 
 
 The scaly shoals in spangled vesture shone. 
 
42 THE HYMN TO BHA VAN I. 
 
 Some slowly through green waves advancing, 
 
 Some swiftly glancing, 
 
 As each thy mild mysterious pow'r impell'd : 
 
 E'en ores and river-dragons felt 
 
 Their iron bosoms melt 
 
 With scorching heat ; for love the mightiest quell'd. 
 
 But straight ascending vapours rare 
 
 O'ercanopied thy seat with lucid air, 
 
 While, through young Indra's new deminions 
 
 Unnumber'd pinions 
 
 Mix'd with thy beams a thousand varying dyes, 
 
 Of birds or insects, who pursued 
 
 Their flying loves, or woo'd 
 
 Them yielding, and with music fill'd the skies. 
 
 And now bedeck'd with sparkling isles 
 
 Like rising stars, the watry desert smiles ; 
 
 Smooth plains by waving forests bounded, 
 
 With hillocks rounded, 
 
 Send forth a shaggy brood, who, frisking light 
 
 In mingled flocks or faithful pairs, 
 
 Impart their tender cares : 
 
 All animals to love their kind invite. 
 
 Nor they alone : those vivid gems. 
 
 That dance and glitter on their leafy stems, 
 
 Thy voice inspires, thy bounty dresses, 
 
 Thy rapture blesses, 
 
 From yon tall palm, who, like a sunborn king. 
 
 His proud tiara spreads elate. 
 
 To those, who throng his gate, 
 
 Where purple chieftains vernal tribute bring. 
 
 A gale so sweet o'er Ganqa breathes. 
 
 That in soft smiles her graceful cheek she wreathes. 
 
 Mark, where her argent brow she raises. 
 
 And blushing gazes 
 
THE HYMN TO BHA VANI . 43 
 
 On yon fresh CHacay whose am'rous flow'r 
 Throws fragrance from his flaunting hair, 
 While with his bloominsf fair 
 He blends perfume, and multiplies the bow'r 
 
 Thus, in one vast eternal gyre, 
 
 Compact or fluid shapes, instinct with fire, 
 
 Lead, as they dance, this gay creation. 
 
 Whose mild gradation 
 
 Of melting tints illudes the visual ray : 
 
 Dense earth fn springing herbage lives. 
 
 Thence life and nurture gives 
 
 To sentient forms, that sink again to clay. 
 
 Ye maids and youths on fruitful plains, 
 
 Where Lacshmi^ revels and Bhava ni reigns, 
 
 Oh, haste ! oh, bring your flow'ry treasures, 
 
 To rapid measures 
 
 Tripping at eve these hallow'd banks along : 
 
 The pow'r, in yon dim shrines ador'd, 
 
 To primal waves restor'd, 
 
 With many a smiling race shall bless your song. 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 I N D R A. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 So many allusions to Hindu Mythology occur in the follow- 
 ing Ode, that it would be scarce intelligible without an ex- 
 planatory introduction, which, on every account and on all 
 occasions, appears preferable to notes in the margin. 
 
 A distinct idea of the God, whom the poem celebrates, 
 may be collected from a passage in the ninth section of the 
 Gitdj where the sudden change of measure has an effect similar 
 to that of the finest modulation : 
 
 te 'punyamdsddya surendra locam 
 asnanti divydn dividevahhoga n, 
 te tarn bhuctwa swergalocam visa lam 
 cshine punye mertyalocam visanti 
 " These, having through virtue reached the mansion of 
 the king of suras, feast on the exquisite heavenly food of the 
 Gods : they, who have enjoyed this lofty region of Swerga, 
 hut whose virtue is exhausted, revisit the habitation of 
 mortals." 
 
 Indra, therefore, or the King of Immortals, corresponds 
 with one of the ancient Jupiter s (for several of that name were 
 worshipped in Europe), and particularly with Jupiter the Con- 
 ductor., whose attributes are so nobly described by the Platonic 
 Philosophers : one of his numerous titles is Dyupeti; or, in 
 the nominative case before certain letters, Dyupetir which 
 means the Lord of Heaven, and seems a more probable origin 
 of the Hetruscan word than Juvans Pater ; as Diespiter was, 
 probably, not the Father, but the Lord, of Day. He may be 
 considered as the Jove of Ennius in his memorable line : 
 
 . * Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem^ 
 
 ' where the poet clearly means the firmament, of which Indra 
 
 is the personification. He is the God of thunder and the five 
 
THE AEGUMENT. 45 
 
 elements, with inferior Genii under his command ; and is 
 conceived to govern the Eastern quarter of the world, but to 
 preside, like the Genius or Agathodcemon of the Ancients, ov^r 
 the celestial bands, which are' stationed on the summit of 
 Ma'ku, or the Northpole, where he solaces the Gods with nec- 
 tar and heavenly music : hence, perhaps, the Hindus, who 
 give evidence, and the magistrates, who hear it, are directed 
 to stand fronting the East or the North. 
 
 This imaginary mount is here feigned to have been seen 
 in a vision at J^rdnasi, very improperly called JBandris, 
 which takes its name from two rivulets, that embrace the city ; 
 and the bard, who was favoured with the sight, is supposed to 
 have been Vya sa, surnamed Dwaipdyana, or Dwelling in an 
 Island ; who, if he really composed the Gita , makes very 
 flattering mention of himself in the tenth chapter. The plant 
 Latd, which he describes weaving a net round the mountain 
 Mandara, is transported by a poetical liberty to Sumeru, which 
 the great author of the Mahdbha rat has richly painted in four 
 beautiful couplets : it is the generic name for a creeper, though 
 represented here as a species, of which many elegant varieties 
 are found in Asia. 
 
 The Genii named Cinnaras are the male dancers in Swerga, 
 or the Heaven of Indra ; and the Apsard's are his dancing- 
 girls, answering to the fairies of the Persians, and to the 
 damsels called in the Koran hhtiru'luyun, or with antelopes' eyes. 
 For the story of Chitrarafha, the chief musician of the Indian 
 paradise, whose painted car was burned by Arjun, and for that 
 of the Chaturdesaretna, or fourteen gems, as they are called, 
 which were produced by churning the ocean, the reader must 
 be referred to Mr. Wilkins's learned annotations on his occurate 
 version of the Bhagavadgitd. The fable of the pomegranate- 
 flower is borrowed from the popular mythology of Nepdl and 
 Tibet. 
 
 In this poem the same form of stanza is repeated with varia- 
 tions, on a principle entirely new in modern lyric poetry, which 
 on some future occasion may be fully explained. 
 
THE HYMN. 
 
 But ah ! what glories yon blue vault emblaze ? 
 
 What living meteors from the zenith stream ? 
 
 Or hath a rapt'rous dream 
 
 Perplex'd the isle-born bard in fiction's maze ? 
 
 He wakes ; he hears ; views no fancied rays. 
 
 'Tis Indra mounted on the sun's bright beam ; 
 And round him revels his empyreal train : 
 
 How rich their tints ! how sweet their strain ! 
 
 Like shooting stars around his regal seat 
 A veil of many-colour'd light they weave, 
 That eyes unholy would of sense bereave : 
 Their sparkling hands and lightly-tripping feet 
 Tir'd gales and panting clouds behind them leave. 
 With love of song and sacred beauty smit 
 The mystic dance they kint ; 
 Pursuing, circling, whirling, twining,[leading. 
 Now chasing, now'receding ; 
 Till the gay pageant from the sky descends 
 On charm' d SumSru, who with homage bends. 
 
 Hail, mountain of delight. 
 Palace of glory, bless'd by glory's king ! 
 With prosp'ring shade embow'r me, whilst I sing 
 Thy wonders yet unreach'd by mortal flight. 
 
 Sky-piercing mountain ! In thy bow'rs of love 
 No tears are seen, save where medici'nal stalks 
 Weep drops balsamic o'er the silver'd walks ; 
 No plaints are heard, save where the restless dove 
 Of coy repulse and mild reluctance talks ; 
 Mantled in woven gold, with gems enchas'd, 
 
A HYMN TO INDRA. 47 
 
 With em'rald hillocks grac'd, 
 
 From whose fresh laps in young fantastic mazes 
 
 Soft crystal bounds and blazes 
 
 Bathing the lithe convolvulus, that winds 
 
 Obsequious, and each flaunting arbour binds. 
 
 When sapient Brahma this new world approv'd. 
 On woody wings eight primal mountains mov'd ; 
 But Indra mark'd Sumeru for his own, 
 And motionless was ev'ry stone. 
 
 Dazzling the moon he rears his golden head : 
 Nor bards inspir'd, nor heav'n's all-perfect speech 
 Less may unhallow'd rhyme his beauties teach, 
 Or paint the pavement which th' immortals tread ; 
 Nor thought of man his awful heio^ht can reach : 
 Who sees it, maddens ; who approaches, dies ; 
 For, with flame-darting eyes. 
 Around it roll a thousand sleepless dragons ; 
 While from their diamond flagons 
 The feasting Gods exhaustless nectar sip, 
 Which glows and sparkles on each fragrant lip. 
 
 This feast, in mem'ry of the churned wave 
 Great Indra gave, when AmHt first was won 
 From impious demons, who to Ma yd's eyes 
 Besign'd the prize, and rued the fight begun. 
 
 Now, while each ardent Cinnara persuades 
 The soft-ey'd Apsard to break the dance, 
 And leads her loth, yet with love-beaming glance, 
 To banks of marjoram and Chamjoac shades. 
 Celestial Genii tow'rd their king advance 
 (So call'd by men, in heav'n Gandharva's nam'd) 
 For matchless music fam'd. 
 Soon, where the bands in lucid rows assemble. 
 Flutes breathe, and citherns tremble; 
 Till Chitraratha sings — His painted car, 
 Yet unconsum'd, gleams hke an orient star. 
 
 Hush'd was ev'ry breezy pinion, 
 
48 A HYMN TO INDRA. 
 
 Ev'ry stream his fall suspended : 
 Silence reign'd ; whose sole dominion 
 Soon was rais'd, but soon was ended. 
 
 He sings, how ' whilom from the troubled main 
 The sov'reign elephant Air a van sprang ; 
 The breathing shell, that peals of conquest rang ; 
 The parent cow, whom none implores in vain ; 
 The milkwhite steed, the bow with deaf ning clang ; 
 The Goddesses of beauty, wealth, and wine ; 
 Flow'rs, that unfading shine, 
 
 Na ka van's gem, the moonlight's tender languish ; 
 Blue venom, source of anguish ; 
 The solemn leech, slow-moving o'er the strand, 
 A vase of long-sought Amrit in his hand. 
 
 To soften human ills dread Siva drank 
 The pois'nous flood, that stain'd his azure neck ; 
 The rest thy mansions deck. 
 High Siverga, stor'd in many a blazing rank. 
 
 Thou, God of thunder, satst on Meru thron'd. 
 Cloud-riding, mountain-piercing, thonsand-ey'd, 
 "With young Pulo maja , thy blooming bride, 
 Whilst air and skies thy boundless empire own'd ; 
 Hail, Dtupetir, dismay to Bala's pride ! 
 Or speaks PuRANDER'best thy martial fame. 
 Or Sacra, mystic name ? 
 With various praise in odes and hallow'd story 
 Sweet bards shall hymn thy glory. 
 Thou, Ya savA, from this unmeasur'd height 
 Shedst pearl, shedst odours o'er the sons of light !' 
 
 The Genius rested ; for his pow'rful art 
 Had svvell'd the monarch's heart with ardour vain. 
 That threaten'd rash disdain, and seem'd to low'r 
 On Gods of loftier pow'r and ampler reign. 
 
 He smil'd ; and, warbling in a softer mode, 
 Sang ' the red light'ning, hail, and whelming rain 
 
A HYMN TO INDRA. 49 
 
 ' O'er Gdcul green and Vrajas nymph-lov'd plain 
 
 By Indra hurl'd, whose altars ne'er had glow'd, 
 
 Since infant Crishna rul'd the rustic train 
 
 Now thrill' d with terrour — Them the heav'nly child 
 
 Call'd, and with looks ambrosial smil'd, 
 
 Then with one finger rear'd the vast Goverdhen, 
 
 Beneath whose rocky burden 
 
 On pastures dry the maids and herdsmen trod : 
 
 The Lord of thunder felt a mightier God !' 
 
 What furies potent modulation soothes t 
 E'en the dilated heart of Indra shrinks : 
 His ruffled brow he smoothes, 
 His lance half-rais'd with listless languor sinks. 
 
 A sweeter strain the sage musician chose : 
 He told, how ' Sachi, soft as morning light, 
 Blythe Sachi, from her Lord Indrani hight. 
 When through clear skies their car ethereal rose, 
 Fix'd on a garden trim her wand'ring sight, 
 Where gay pomegranates, fresh with early dew, 
 Vaunted their blossoms new : 
 
 " Oh ! pluck, she said, yon gems, which nature dresses 
 To grace my darker tresses." 
 In form a shepherd's boy, a God in soul, 
 ' He hasten'd, and the bloomy treasure stole. 
 
 The reckless peasant, who those glowing flow'rs, 
 Hopeful of rubied fruit, had foster'd long, 
 Seiz'd and with cordasre strons: 
 Shackled the God, who gave him show'rs. 
 
 Straight from sev'n winds immortal Genii flew, 
 Green Varuna, whom foamy waves obey. 
 Bright Vahni flaming like the lamp of day, 
 Cuvera sought by all, enjoyed by few, 
 Marut, who bids the winged breezes play, 
 Stern Yama, ruthless judge, and ha cold 
 G 
 
50 A HYMX TO TNDRA. 
 
 With Nairrit mildly bold : 
 
 They with the ruddy flash, that points his thunder, 
 
 E-end his vain bands asunder. 
 
 Th' exulting God resumes his thousand eyes, 
 
 Four arms divine, and robes of changing dyes.* 
 
 Soft memory retrac'd the youthful scene : 
 The thundVer yielded to resistless charms. 
 Then smil'd enamour'd on his blushing queen. 
 And melted in her arms. 
 
 Such was the vision, which, on VararCs breast 
 Or Asi pure with ofFer'd blossoms fiU'd, 
 DwAiPA YAN slumb'ring saw ; (thus Na red will'd) 
 For waking eye such glory never bless'd. 
 Nor waking ear such music ever thrill 'd. 
 It vanished with light sleep : he, rising, praised 
 The guarded mount high-raised. 
 
 And pray'd the thund'ring pow'r, that sheafy treasures. 
 Mild show'rs and vernal pleasures. 
 The laboring youth in mead and vale might cheer, 
 And cherish' d herdsmen bless th' abundant year. 
 
 Thee, darter of the swift blue bolt, he sang ; 
 Sprinkler of genial dews and fruitful rains 
 O'er hills and thirsty plains ! 
 
 ' When through the waves of war thy charger sprang, 
 Each rock rebellow'd and each forest rang, 
 Till vanquish'd Asurs feli avenging pains. 
 Send o'er their seats the snake, that never dies, 
 But waft the virtuous to thy skies ! ' 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 S U" R Y A 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 A PLAUSIBLE opinion has been entertained by learned 
 men, that the principal source of idolatry among the ancients 
 was their enthusiastic admiration of the Sun ; and that, when 
 the primitive religion of mankind was lost amid the distractions' 
 of establishing regal government, or neglected amid the allure- 
 ments of vice, they ascribed to the great visible luminary, or 
 to the wonderful fluid, of which it is the general reservoir, 
 those powers of pervading all space and animating all nature, 
 which their wiser ancestors had attributed to one eternal Mind, 
 by whom the substance of fire had been created as an inanimate 
 and secondary cause of natural phenomena. The Mythology 
 of the East confirms this opinion ; and it is probable, that the 
 triple Divinity of the Hindus was originally no more than a 
 personification of the Sun, whom they call Treyitenu, or Three- 
 hodied, in his triple capacity of producing forms by his " genial 
 heat, preserving them , by his light, or destroying them by the 
 concentrated force of his igneous matter : this, with the wilder 
 ponceit of a, female power united with the Godhead, and ruling 
 nature by his authority, will account for nearly the whole 
 system of Egyptian, Indiarif and Grecian polytheism, distin- 
 guished from the sublime Theology of the Philosophers, whose 
 understandings were too strong to admit the popular belief, 'but 
 whose influence was too weak to reform it. 
 
Cr2 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Su KYA, PiicEBUs of Europeau heathens, has near fifty 
 names or epithets in the Sanscrit language ; most of which, or 
 at least the meanings of them, are introduced in the following 
 Ode ; and every image, that seemed capable of poetical orna- 
 ment, has been selected from books of the highest authority 
 among the Hindus : the title Area is very singular ; and it is 
 remarkable, that the Tihetians represent the Sun's car in the 
 form of a hoat. 
 
 It will be necessary to explain a few other particulars of the 
 Hindu Mythology, to which allusions are made in the poem. 
 Soma, or the Moon, is a male Deity in the Indian system, as 
 Mona was, I believe, among the Saxons, and Lunus among 
 some of the nations, who settled in Italy : his titles also, with 
 one or two of the ancient fables, to which they refer, are 
 exhibited in the second stanza. Most of the Lunar mansions 
 are believed to be the daughters of Casyapa, the first produc- 
 tion of BrahmcCs head, and from their names are derived those 
 of the twelve months, who are here feigned to have married 
 as many constellations : this primeval Bra hman and Vinatd 
 are also supposed to have been the parents of Arun, the 
 charioteer of the Sun, and of the bird Garuda, the eagle of 
 the great Indian Jove, one of whose epithets is Madha va. 
 
 After this explanation the Hymn will have few or no 
 difficulties, especially if the reader has perused and studied the 
 Bhagavadgi td, with which our literature has been lately enrich- 
 ed, and the fine episode from the Mdha bha rat, on the produc- 
 tion of the Amrita, which seems to be almost wholly astro- 
 nomical, but abounds with poetical beauties. Let the follow- 
 ing description of the demon Rahu, decapitated by Na ra yan, 
 be compared with similar passages in Hesiod and Milton : 
 tach di hailasringapratiman da navasya sird mahat 
 chacracK liinnam vhamutpatya nena diti hhayancaramy 
 tat cahandlictm pepdtdsya visp*hurad dharani taU 
 sapervatavanadiui pdn daityasya campayanmahim. 
 
THE HYMN. 
 
 Fountain of living Ught, 
 
 That o'er all^ature streams, 
 
 Of this vast microcosm both nerve and soul ; 
 
 Whose swift and subtil beams, 
 
 Eluding mortal sight, 
 
 Pervade, attract, sustain th' effulgent whole. 
 
 Unite, impel, dilate, calcine, 
 
 Give to gold its weight and blaze, 
 
 Dart from the diamond many- tinted rays. 
 
 Condense, protrude, transform, concoct, refine 
 
 The sparkling daughters of the mine ; 
 
 Lord of the lotos, father, friend, and king, 
 
 O Sun, thy pow'rs I sing : 
 
 Thy substance Indra with his heav'nly bands 
 
 Nor sings nor understands ; 
 
 Nor e'en the Vedas three to man explain 
 
 Thy mystic orb triform, though Brahma tun'd the strain. 
 
 Thou, nectar-beaming Moon, 
 Kegent of dewy night. 
 
 From yon black roe, that in thy bosom sleeps. 
 Fawn-spotted Sasin hight ; 
 Wilt thou desert so soon 
 
 Thy night-flow 'rs pale, whom liquid odour steeps. 
 And Oshadhi's transcendent beam 
 Burning in the darkest glade ? 
 Will no lov'd name thy gentle mind persuade 
 Yet one short hour to shed thy cooling stream ? 
 But ah ! we court a passing dream : 
 
54 A HYMN TO SURYA. 
 
 Our pray'r nor Indu nor Himci nsu hears ; 
 
 He fades ; he disappears — 
 
 E'en CasyapaJs gay daughters twinkling die, 
 
 And silence lulls the sky, 
 
 Till Chdtacs twitter from the moving brake, 
 
 And sandal-breathing gales on beds of ether wake. 
 
 Burst into song, ye spheres ; 
 A greater light proclaim, , 
 
 And hymn, concentric orbs, with sev*i?fold chime 
 The God with many a name ; 
 Nor let un hallow 'd ears 
 
 Drink life and rapture from your charm sublime : 
 ' Our bosoms, Aryama inspire. 
 Gem of heav'n, and flowV of day. 
 Vivas wat, lancer of the golden ray, 
 Divdcara, pure source of holy fire. 
 Victorious 'i2a inas fervid fire, 
 Dread child of Aditi, Martunda blessed. 
 Or Siira be address'd, 
 Bavi, or Mihira, or Bha mi bold, 
 Or Area, title old. 
 
 Or Heridaswa drawn by green-hair'd steeds. 
 Or Carmasacshi keen, a;ttesting secret deeds. 
 
 What fiend, what monster fierce 
 E'er durst thy throne invade ? 
 Malignant Ra hu. Him thy wakeful sight, 
 That could the deepest shade 
 Of snaky Narac pierce, 
 
 Mark'd quafiing nectar ; when by magic sleight 
 A Sura's lovely form he wore, 
 Rob'd in light, with lotos crown'd, 
 "What time th' immortals peerless treasures found 
 On the churn'd Ocean's gem-bespangled shore, 
 And Mandar^s load the tortoise bore : 
 Thy voice reveal'd the daring sacrilege ; 
 
A HYMN TO SURTA. 55 
 
 Then, by the deathful edge 
 
 Of bright Sudersan cleft, his dragon head 
 
 Dismay and horror spread 
 
 Kicking the skies, and struggling to impair 
 
 The radiance of thy robes, and stain thy golden hair. 
 
 With smiles of stern disdain 
 Thou, sovereign victor, seest 
 His impious rage : soon from the mad assault 
 Thy courser^fly releas'd ; 
 Then toss each verdant mane. 
 And gallop o'er the smooth aerial vault ; 
 Whilst in charm'd GocuVs od'rous vale 
 Blue-ey'd Yamund descends 
 Exulting, and her tripping tide suspends, 
 The triumph of her mighty sire to hail : 
 So must they fall, who Gods assail ! 
 For now the demon rues his rash emprise, 
 Yet, belloVing blasphemies 
 
 With pois'nous throat, for horrid vengeance thirsts, 
 And oft with tempest bursts. 
 As oft repeird he groans in fiery chains. 
 And o*er the realms of day unvanquish'd Surya reigns.* 
 
 Ye clouds, in wavy wreathes 
 Your dusky van unfold ; 
 0*er dimpled sands, ye surges, gently flow. 
 With sapphires edg*d and gold ! 
 Loose- tressed morning breathes. 
 And spreads her blushes with expansive glow ; 
 But chiefly where 'heav'n's op'ning eye 
 Sparkles at her safli'on gate. 
 How rich, how regal in his orient state ! 
 Erelong he shall imblaze th' unbounded sky : 
 The fiends of darkness yelling fly ; 
 While birds of liveliest note and lightest wing 
 The rising daystar sing, 
 
56 A HYMN TO SURYA. 
 
 Who skirts th* horizon with a blazing line 
 
 Of topazes divine ; 
 
 E'en, in their prelude, brighter and more bright. 
 
 Flames the red east, and pours insufferable light*. 
 
 First o'er blue hills appear, 
 
 "With many an agate hoof 
 
 And pasterns fring*d with pearl, sev'n coursers green ; 
 
 Nor boasts yon arched woof. 
 
 That girds the show'ry sphere, 
 
 Such heav'n-spun threads of colour'd light serene, 
 
 As tinge the reins, which Arim guides, 
 
 Glowing with immortal grace, 
 
 Young Arun, loveliest of Vinatian race, 
 
 Though younger He, whom Mddhava bestrides, 
 
 When high on eagle-plumes he rides : 
 
 But oh ! what pencil of a living star 
 
 Could paint that gorgeous car, 
 
 In which, as in an ark supremely bright, 
 
 The lord of boundless light 
 
 Ascending calm o'er th* empyrean sails. 
 
 And with ten thousand beams his awful beauty veils. 
 
 Behind the glowing wheels 
 Six jocund seasons dance, 
 A radiant month in each quick -shifting hand ; 
 Alternate they advance. 
 While buxom nature feels 
 The grateful changes of the frolic band : 
 Each month a constellation fair 
 Knit in youthful wedlock holds. 
 And o'er each bed a varied sun unfolds. 
 Lest one vast blaze our visual force impair, 
 A canopy of woven air. 
 Vasanta blythe with many a laughing flow'r 
 Decks his Candarpa^s bow'r ; 
 The drooping pastures thirsty Grishma dries, 
 * See Qray'8 Letters, p. 382, 4to. aad the not*. 
 
A HYMN TO SURYA. 57 
 
 Till VerslicL bids them rise ; 
 
 Then Sarat with full sheaves the champaign fills, 
 
 Which Sisira bedews, and stern Hemanta chills. * 
 
 • 
 
 Mark, how th' all-kindling orb 
 Meridian glory gains ! 
 
 Round Meru's breathing zone he winds oblique 
 O'er pure cerulean plains : 
 His jealous flames absorb 
 All meaner Ughts, and unresisted strike 
 The world with rapt'rous joy and dread. 
 Ocean, smit with melting pain. 
 Shrinks, and the fiercest monster of the main 
 Mantles in caves profound his tusky head 
 With sea- weeds dank and coral spread : 
 Less can mild earth and her green daughters bear 
 The noon's wide-wasting glare ; 
 To rocks the panther creeps ; to woody night 
 The vulture steals his flight ; 
 E'en cold cameleons pant in thickets dun, 
 And o'er the burning grit th ' unwin^ed locusts run \ 
 
 But when thy foaming steeds 
 Descend with rapid pace 
 Thy fervent axle hast'ning to allay. 
 What majesty, what grace 
 Dart o'er the western meads 
 From thy relenting eye their blended ray ! 
 Soon may th' undazzled sense behold 
 Kich as Visliniis diadem, 
 Or Amrit sparkling in an azure gem, 
 Thy horizontal globe of molten gold, 
 Which pearl'd and rubied clouds infold. 
 It sinks ; and myriads of difl'usive dyes 
 Stream o'er the tissued skies. 
 
 Till Soma smiles, attracted by the song * 
 
 Of many a plumed throng 
 H 
 
58 A HYMN TO SURYA. 
 
 In groves, meads, vales ; and, whilst he glides above, 
 Each bush and dancing bough quaflPs harmony and love. 
 
 Then roves thy poet free, 
 "Who with no borrow' d art 
 
 Dares hymn thy pow'r, and durst provoke thy blaze, 
 But felt thy thrilling dart ; 
 And now, on lowly knee, 
 
 From him, who gave the wound, the balsam prays. 
 Herbs, that assuage the fever's pain. 
 Scatter from thy rolling car, 
 CuU'd by sage Aswm and divine Cicma r ; 
 And, if they ask, " What mortal pours the strain 1" 
 Say (for thou seest earth, air, and main) 
 Say : " From the bosom of yon silver isle, 
 Where skies more softly smile. 
 He came ; and, lisping our celestial tongue. 
 Though not from Brahma sprung. 
 Draws orient knowledge from its fountains pure, 
 Through caves obstructed long, and paths too long obscure.' 
 
 Yes ; though the Sanscrit song 
 Be strown witlf fancy's wreathes, 
 And emblems rich, beyond low thoughts renn'd. 
 Yet heav'nly truth it breathes 
 With attestation strong. 
 
 That, loftier than thy sphere, th' Eternal Mind, 
 Unmoved unrival'd undefil'd, 
 E-eigns with providence benign : 
 'He still'd the rude abyss, and bade it shine 
 (While Sapience with approving aspect mild 
 Saw the stupendous work, and smil'd) ; 
 Next thee, his ilaming minister, bade rise 
 O'er young and wondering skies. 
 Since thou, great orb, with all-enlight'ning ray 
 Rulest the golden day. 
 How far more glorious He, who said serene, 
 Be, and thou wast — Himself unform'd, unchang'd, uaseen 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 LA C S H M I'. 
 
 ^ THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Most of the allusions to Indian Geography and Mythology^ 
 which occur in the following Ode to the Goddess of Abundance 
 have been explained on former occasions ; and the rest are 
 sufficiently clear. Lacshm/, or Sr/, the Ceres of India, is the 
 preserving power of nature, or, in the language of allegory, the 
 consort of Vishnu or Heri, a personification of the divine good- 
 ness ; and her origin is variously deduced in the SQYQVdX p)urdna^'s, 
 as we might expect from a system wholly figurative and emble- 
 matical. Some represent her as the daughter of Bhrigu, a son 
 of Brahma'; but, in the Ma rcandeya Purdn, the Indian Isis, 
 or Nature, is said to have assumed three transcendent forms, 
 according to her three gunas or qualities, and, in each of them, 
 to have produced a pair of divinities, Brahma^ and Lacshm/, 
 Mahe s A and SsREswATi , Vishnu and Ca'li'^; after whose 
 intermarriage, Brahma and Sereswati'' formed the mundane 
 Egg, which Mahe'sa and CA^L/di^dded into halves ; and Vishnu 
 together with Lacshmi' preserved it from destruction : a third 
 story supposes her to have sprung from the Sea of milk', when 
 it was churned on the sfecond incarnation of Hert, who is often 
 painted reclining on the serpent Ananta, the emblem of eternity ; 
 and this fable, whatever may be the meaning of it, has been 
 chosen as the most poetical. Tlie other names of Sr/, or 
 Prosperity, are Heripbiya^, Pebma'lata^, or PEDMA^and Camala ; 
 the first implying the wife of Vishnu, and the rest derived from 
 th« names of the Lotos. As to the tale of Suda'maN; whos« 
 
60 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 wealth is proverbial among the Hindus, it is related at consider- 
 able length in the Bhagavat, or great piirdn on the 
 Achievements of Crishna : the^^ra limen, who read it with me, 
 was frequently stopped by his tears. We may be inclined 
 perhaps to think, that the wild fables of idolaters are not worth 
 knowing, and that we may be satisfied with mispending our 
 time in learning the Pagan Theology of old Greece and Rome ; 
 but we must consider, that the allegories contained in the Hymn 
 to Lacshmi constitute at this moment the prevailing religion 
 of a most extensive and celebrated Empire, 'and are devoutly 
 believed by many millions, whose industry adds to the revenue 
 of Britain, and whose manners, which are interwoven with their 
 religious opinions, nearly affect all Europeans^ who reside among 
 them. 
 
THE HYMN 
 
 Daughter of Ocean and primeval Night, 
 Who, fed with moonbeams dropping silver dew, 
 And cradledjn a wild wave dancing light, 
 Saw'st with a smile new shores and creatures new, 
 Thee, Goddess, I salute ; thy gifts I sing. 
 
 And, not with idle wing, 
 Soar from this fragrant bow'r through tepid skies. 
 Ere yet the steeds of noon's effulgent king 
 Shake their green manes and blaze with rubied eyes : 
 Hence, floating o'er the smooth expense of day. 
 
 Thy bounties I survey. 
 See through man's oval realm thy charms display'd. 
 See clouds, air, earth, performing thy behest. 
 Plains by soft show'rs, thy tripping handmaids, dress'd, 
 And fruitful woods, in gold and gems array 'd. 
 
 Spangling the mingled shade ; 
 "While autumn boon his yellow ensign rears, 
 And stores the world's true wealth in rip'ning ears. 
 
 But most that central tract thy smile adorns, 
 Which old Himdla clips with fost'ring arms. 
 As with a wexing moon's half-circling horns, 
 And shields from bandits fell, or worse alarms 
 Of Tatar horse from Yunan late subdued. 
 
 Or Bactrian bowmen rude ; 
 Snow-crown'd Himdla, whence, with wavy wings 
 Far spread, as falcons o'er their nestlings brood, 
 Fam'd Brahmaputra joy 'and verdure brings. 
 And Sindhus five-arm'd flood from Cashghar hastes. 
 
 To cheer the rocky wastes. 
 Through western this and that through orient plains ; 
 
62 A HYMN TO LACSHMI . 
 
 While bluish Yamunci between them streams, 
 And Ganga pure with sunny radiance gleams. 
 Till Vdnl, whom a russet ochre stains, 
 
 Their destin'd confluence gains : 
 Then flows in mazy knot the triple pow'r 
 O'er laughing Magadh and the vales of Gour. 
 
 Not long inswath'd the sacred infant lay 
 (Celestial forms full soon their prime attain) : 
 Her eyes, oft darted o'er the liquid way, 
 "With golden light emblaz'd the darkling main ; 
 And those firm breasts, whence all our comforts well, 
 
 Rose with enchanting swell ; 
 Her loose hair with the bounding billows play'd. 
 And caught in charming toils each pearly shell, 
 That idling through the surgy forest stray'd ; 
 "When ocean sufFer'd a portentous change, 
 
 Toss'd with convulsion strange ; 
 For lofty Mandar from his base was torn. 
 With streams, rocks, woods, by Gods and Demons whirled. 
 While round his crasrgy sides the mad spray curl'd, 
 Hugh mountain, by the passive Tortoise borne : 
 
 Then sole, but not forlorn, 
 Shipp'd in a flow'r, that balmy sweets exhal'd. 
 O'er waves of dulcet cream Pedma la sail'd. 
 So name the Goddess from her Lotos blue, 
 Or Camala , if more auspicious deem'd : 
 With many-petal'd wings the blossom flew. 
 And from the mount a flutt'ring sea-bird seem'd, 
 Till on the shore it stopp'd, the heav'n-lov'd shore, 
 
 Bright with unvalued store 
 Of gems marine by mirthful Indra won ; 
 But she, (what brighter gem had shone before ?) 
 No bride for old Ma'ri'cha's frolic son. 
 On azure Heri fix'd her prosp'ring eyes : 
 
 Love bade the bridegroom rise ; 
 Straight o'er the deep, then dimpling smooth, he rush'd ; 
 
A HYMN TO LACSHMI . 63 
 
 And tow'rd th' unmeasured snake, stupendous bed, 
 The world's great mother, not reluctant, led : 
 All nature glow'd, whene'er she smil'd or blushed, 
 The king of serpents hush*d 
 * His thousand heads, where diamond mirrors blaz'd, 
 That multiplied her image, as he gaz'd. 
 
 Thus multiplied, thus wedded, they pervade. 
 In varying myriads of ethereal forms, 
 This pendei)^ Egof by dovelike Ma ya laid, 
 And quell Ma he s!a's ire, when most it storms ; 
 Ride on keen liofhtning and disarm its flash. 
 
 Or bid loud surges lash 
 Th' impassive rock, and leave the rolline barque 
 With oars unshatter'd milder seas to dash ; 
 And oft, as man's unnumber'd woes they mark. 
 They spring to birth in some high-favour' d line. 
 Half human, half divine. 
 
 And tread life's maze tran'^fignr'd, unimpair'd : 
 As when, through blest Vrinda vans od'rous grove. 
 They deign'd with hinds and village girls to rove. 
 And myrth or toil in field or dairy shar'd. 
 
 As lowly rustics far'd : 
 Blythe Ka dha she, with speaking eyes, was nam'd, 
 He Crishna, lov'd in youth, in manhood fam'd. 
 
 Though long in Mathura^ with milkmaids bred, 
 Each bush attuning with his past'ral flute, 
 Ananda's holy steers the Herdsman fed, . ' 
 
 His nobler mind aspir'd to nobler fruit : 
 The fiercest monsiers of each brake or wood 
 
 His youthful arm withstood. 
 And from the rank mire of the stagnant lake 
 Drew the crush'd serpent with ensanguin'd hood ; 
 Then, worse than rav'ning beast or fenny snake, 
 A ruthless king his pond'rous mace laid low, 
 
 And heav'n approv'd the blow : 
 
64 A HYMN TO LACSHMI . 
 
 No more in bow'r or wattled cabin pent, 
 By rills he scorn'd and flow'ry banks to dwell, 
 His pipe lay timeless, and his wreathy shell 
 With martial clangor hills and forests rent ; 
 
 On crimson wars intent 
 He sway'd high Dwa raca , that fronts the mouth 
 Of gulfy Sindhu from the burning south. 
 
 A Brahmen young, who, when the heav'nly boy 
 In Vraja green and scented Gocul play'^, 
 Partook each transient care, each flitting joy. 
 And hand in hand through dale or thicket stray 'd, 
 By fortune sever'd from the blissful seat, 
 
 Had sought a lone retreat ; 
 Where in a costless hut sad hours he pass'd, 
 Its mean thatch pervious to the daystar's heat. 
 And fenceless from night's dew or pinching blast : 
 Firm virtue he possess'd and vigorous health, 
 
 But they were all his wealth. 
 SuDA MAN was he nam'd ; and many a year 
 (If glowing song can life and honour give) 
 From sun to sun his honour'd name shall live : 
 Oft strove his consort wise their gloom to cheer, 
 
 And hide the stealing tear ; 
 But all her thrift could scarce each eve afford 
 The needful sprinkling of their scanty board. 
 
 Now Fame, who rides on sunbeams, and conveys 
 To woods and antres deep her spreading gleam, 
 Illumin'd earth and heav'n with Crishna's praise : 
 Each forest echoed loud the joyous theme. 
 But keener joy Suda man's bosom thrilFd, 
 
 And tears ecstatic rill'd : 
 " My friend, he cried, is monarch of the skies !" 
 Then counsoU'd she, who nought unseemly will'd : 
 *' Oh ! haste ; oh ! seek the God with lotos eyes ; 
 The pow'r that stoops to soften human pain, 
 
A HYMN TO LACSHMI^ C5 
 
 Though bashful penury his hope depress'd ; 
 
 A tatter'd cincture was his only vest, 
 
 And o'er his weaker shoulder loosely spread 
 
 Floated the mystic thread : 
 * Secure from scorn the crowded paths he trode 
 Through yielding ranks, and hail'd the Shepherd God. 
 
 " Friend of my childhood, lov'd in riper age, 
 A dearer guest these mansions never grac'd : 
 O meek in sqgial hours, in council sage ! " 
 So spake the Warriour, and his neck embrac'd ; 
 And e'en the Goddess left her golden seat 
 
 Her lord's compeer to greet : 
 He charm'd, but prostrate on the hallow'd floor, 
 Their purfled vestment kiss'd and radiant feet ; 
 Then from a small fresh leaf, a borrow'd store 
 (Such off'rings e'en to mortal kings are due) 
 
 Of modest rice he drew. 
 Some proff'er'd grains the soft-ey'd Hero ate. 
 And more had eaten, but, with placid mien. 
 Bright E-ucMiNi (thus name th' all-bounteous Queen) 
 Exclaim'd : " Ah, hold ! enough for mortal state !" 
 
 Then grave on themes elate 
 Discoursing, or on past adventures gay. 
 They clos'd with converse mild the rapt'rous day. 
 At smile of dawn dismiss'd, ungifted, home 
 The hermit plodded, till sublimely rais'd 
 On granite columns many a sumptuous dome 
 He view'd, and many a spire, that richly blaz'd, 
 And seem'd, impurpled by the blush of morn. 
 
 The lowlier plains to scorn 
 Imperious : they, with conscious worth serene, 
 Laugh'd at vain pride, and bade new gems adorn 
 Each rising shrub, that clad them. Lovely scene 
 And more than human ! His astonish'd sight 
 
 Drank deep the strange delight : 
 
65 A TIYMN TO LACSHMl' 
 
 He saw brisk fountains dance, crisp riv'lets wind 
 O'er borders trim, and round inwoven bow'rs, 
 Where sportive creepers, threading ruby flow'rs 
 On em'rald stalks, each vernal arch intwin'd, 
 
 Luxuriant though confin'd ; 
 And heard sweet-breathing gales in whispers tell 
 From what young bloom they sipp'd their spicy smell. 
 
 Soon from the palace-gate in broad array 
 A maiden legion, touching tuneful strings, 
 Descending strow'd with flow'rs the brighten'd way. 
 And straight, their jocund van in equal v/ings 
 Unfoldinof, in their vacant centre show'd 
 
 Their chief, whose vesture glow'd 
 With carbuncles and smiling pearls atween ; 
 And o'er her head a veil translucent flow'd, 
 Which, dropping light, disclos'd a beauteous queen, 
 Who, breathing love, and swift with timid grace, 
 
 Sprang to her lord's embrace 
 With ardent greeting and sweet blandishment ; 
 His were the marble tow'rs, th' officious train, 
 The gems unequal'd and the large domain : 
 AVhen bursting joy its rapid stream had spent, 
 
 The stores, which heav*n had lent,/ 
 He spread unsparing, unattach'd employ'd, 
 With meekness view'd, with temp'rate bliss enjoy'd. 
 
 Such were thy gifts, Pedma^la , such the pow'r ! 
 For, when thy smile irradiates yon blue fields. 
 Observant Indra sheds the genial show'r, 
 And pregnant earth her springing tribute yields 
 Of spiry blades, that clothe the champaign dank, 
 
 Or skirt the verd'rous bank. 
 That in th' o'erflowing rill allays his thirst : 
 Then, rising gay in many a waving rank, 
 The stalks redunda>it into laughter burst ; 
 The rivers broad, like busy should' ling bands, 
 
 Clap their applauding hands j 
 
A HYMN TO LACSHMI . 67 
 
 t 
 
 The marish dances and the forest sings ; 
 The vaunting trees their bloomy banners rear ; 
 And shouting hills proclaim th' abundant year. 
 That food to herds, to herd'smen plenty brings, 
 
 And wealth to guardian kings. 
 Shall man unthankful riot on thy stores ? 
 Ah, no ! he bends, he blesses, he adores. 
 
 But, when his vices rank thy frown excite, 
 Excessive sl^w'rs the plains and valleys drench. 
 Or warping insects heath and coppice blight. 
 Or drought unceasing, which no streams can quench, 
 The germin shrivels or contracts the shoot, 
 
 Or burns the wasted root : 
 Then fade the groves with gathered crust imbrown'd. 
 The hills lie gasping, and the woods are mute. 
 Low sink the riv'lets from the yawning ground ; 
 Till Famine gaunt her screaming pack lets slip, 
 
 And shakes her scorpion whip ; 
 Dire forms of death spread havock, as she flies, 
 Pain at her skirts and Mis'ry by her side, 
 And jabb'ring spectres o'er her traces glide ; 
 The mother clasps her babe, with livid eyes. 
 
 Then, faintly shrieking, dies : 
 He drops expiring, or but lives to feel 
 The vultures bick'ring for their horrid meal. 
 
 From ills, that, painted, harrow up the breast,. 
 (What agonies, if real, must they give !) , " 
 
 Preserve thy vot'ries : be their labours blest ! 
 Oh ! bid the patient Hindu rise and live. 
 His erring mind, that wizard lore beguiles 
 
 Clouded by priestly wiles, 
 To senseless nature bows for nature's God. 
 Now, stretch'd o'er ocearl's vast from happier isles,. 
 He sees the wand of empire, not the rod : , 
 
 Ah, may those beams, that western skies illume^ 
 Disperse th' unholy gloom ! 
 
C8 A HYMN TO LACSHMK 
 
 Meanwhile may laws, by myriads long rever'd, 
 Tlieir strife appease, their gentler claims decide ; 
 So shall their victors, mild with virtuous pride. 
 To many a cherish'd grateful race endear'd. 
 With temper' d love be fear'd : 
 Though mists profane obscure their narrow ken. 
 They err, yet feel ; though pagans, they are men. 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 ^N A' R A' Y E N A 
 
 THE .ARGUMENT. 
 
 A COMPLETE introduction to the following Ode would 
 be no less than a full comment on the Vayds and Pura ns of 
 the Hindus, the remains of Egyptian and Persian Theology, 
 and the tenets of the Ionic and Italic Schools ; but this is not 
 the place for so vast a disquisition. It will be sufficient here to 
 premise, that the inextricable difficulties attending the vulgar 
 notion of material substances, conerning which 
 
 ■" We know this only, that we nothing know," 
 
 induced many of the wisest among the Ancients, and some of 
 the most enlightened among the Moderns, to believe, that the 
 whole Creation was rather an energy than a ivorh, by which the 
 Infinite Being, who is present at all times in all places, exhibits 
 to the minds of his creatures a set of perceptions, like a 
 wonderful picture or piece of music, always varied, yet always 
 uniform ; so that all bodies and their qualities exist, indeed, to 
 every wise and useful purpose, but exist onlyas far as they are 
 perceived ; a theory no less pious than sublime, and as different 
 from any principle of Atheism, as the brightest sunshine differs 
 from the blackest midnight. This illusive operation of the Deity 
 the Hindu philosophers call Ma ya , or Deception ; and the word 
 occurs in this sense more than once in the commentary on the 
 Rig Vayd, by the great Vasishtha, of which Mr. Halhed has 
 given us an admirable specimen. 
 
70 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 The first stanza of the Hymn represents the sublimesfc 
 attributes of the Supreme Being, and the three forms, in which 
 they most clearly appear to us, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, 
 or, in the language of Orpheus and his disciples. Love : the 
 second comprises the Indian and Egyptian doctrine of the Divine 
 Essence and Archetypal Ideas ; for a distinct account of which 
 the reader must be referred to a noble description in the sixth 
 book of Plato's Republic ; and the fine explanation of that 
 passage in an elegant discourse by the author of Cyrus, from 
 whose learned work a hint has been borrowed for the conclusion 
 of this piece. The third and fourth are taken from the Institutes 
 of Menu, and the eighteenth puran of Vya sa , entitled Srey 
 Bhagawat, part of which has been translated into Persian, not 
 without elegance, but rather too paraphrastically. From 
 Brehme, or the Great Being, in the neuter gender, is formed 
 Brehma , in the masculine ; and the second word is appropriated 
 to the creative power of the Divinity. 
 
 The spirit of God, called Na ra tena, or moving on the water, 
 has a multiplicity of other epithets in Sanscrit, the principal of 
 which are introduced, expressly or by allusion, in the fifth 
 stanza ; and two of them contain the names of the evil beings, 
 who are feigned to have sprung from the ears of Vishnu ; for 
 thus the divine spirit is entitled, when considered as the pre- 
 serving power : the sixth ascribes the perception of secondary 
 qualities by our senses to the immediate influence of Ma ya ; 
 and the seventh imputes to her operation the primary qualities 
 of extension and solidity. 
 
THE HYMN 
 
 fePTRiT of Spirits, who, through ev'ry part 
 Of space expanded and of endless time, 
 Beyond the stretch of lab'ring thought sublime, 
 Badst uproar into beauteous order start, 
 Before Heav'n was. Thou art ; 
 
 Ere spheres beneath us roll'd or spheres above. 
 Ere earth in firmamental ether hung. 
 
 Thou satst alone ; till, through thy mystic Love, 
 Things unexisting to existence sprung, 
 
 And grateful descant sung. 
 What first impell'd thee to exert thy might ? 
 Goodness unlimited. What glorious light 
 Thy pow'r directed ? Wisdom without bound. 
 What prov'd it first ? Oh ! guide my fancy right ; 
 Oh ! raise from combrous ground 
 My soul in rapture drown'd, 
 That fearless it may soar on wings of fire ; 
 For Thou, who only knowst, Thou only canst inspire. 
 
 Wrapt in eternal solitary shade, 
 
 Th' impenetrable gloom of light intense, 
 Impervious, inaccessible, immense, 
 Ere spirits were infus'd or forms display'd, 
 Brehm his own Mind survey 'd, 
 
 As mortal eyes (thus finite we compare 
 With infinite) in smoothest mirrors gaze : 
 Swift, at his look, a shape supremely fair 
 Leap'd into being with a boundless blaze, 
 That fifty suns might daze. 
 
 Primeval Maya was the Goddess nam'd, 
 
A HYMN TO NaIiAYENA. 
 
 Who to her sire, with Love divine inflam'd, 
 
 A casket gave with rich Ideas fill'd, 
 
 From which this gorgeous Universe he fram'd; 
 
 For, when th' Almighcy will'd 
 
 Unnumber'd worlds to build, <» 
 
 From Unity diversified he sprang, 
 While gay Creation laugh'd, and procreant Nature rang. 
 
 First an all-potent all-pervading sound 
 
 Bade flow the waters and the waters flow'd, 
 
 Exulting in their measureless abode. 
 Diffusive, multitudinous, profound. 
 Above, beneath, around ; 
 Then o'er the vast expanse primordial wind 
 Breath'd gently, till a lucid bubble rose. 
 Which grew in perfect shape an Egg refin'd : 
 Created substance no such lustre shows, 
 Earth no such beauty knows. 
 Above the warring waves it danc'd elate, 
 Till from its bursting shell with lovely state 
 A form cerulean flutter'd o'er the deep, 
 Brightest of beings, greatest of the great : 
 Who, not as mortals steep. 
 Their eyes in dewy sleep, 
 But heav'nly-pensive on the Lotos lay, 
 That blossom'd at his touch and shed a golden ray. 
 
 Hail, primal blossom ! hail empyreal gem ! 
 . Kemel, or Pedma, or whate'er high name 
 
 Delight thee, say, what four-form'd Godhead came. 
 
 With graceful stole and beamy diadem, 
 Forth from thy verdant stem ? 
 Full-gifted Brehma ! Rapt in solemn thought 
 
 He stood, and round his eyes fire-darting threw ; 
 
 But, whilst his viewless origin he sought. 
 
 One plain he saw of living waters blue. 
 Their spring nor saw nor knew. 
 
A HYMN TO XaIiAYEXA. TS 
 
 Then, in his parent stalk again retir'd, 
 With restless pain for ages he inquir'd 
 "What were his pow'rs, by. whom, and why conferred : 
 "With doubts perplex'd, with keen impatience fir'd 
 He rose, and rising heard 
 Th' unknown all-knowing Word, 
 " Brehma j no more in vain research persist : 
 My veil thou canst not move — Go ; bid all worlds exist.'' 
 
 Hail, self-exislent, in celestial speech 
 
 Narayen, from thy watry cradle, nam'd ; 
 Or Yenamaly may I sing unblam'd, 
 With flow'ry braids, that to thy sandals reach, 
 Whose beauties, who can teach ? 
 Or high Peitamber clad in yellow robes 
 Than sunbeams brighter in meridian glow, 
 That weave their heav'n-spun light o'er circling globes ? 
 Unwearied, lotos-eyed, with dreadful bow, 
 Dire Evil's constant foe ! 
 Great Pedmanabha, o'er thy cherish'd world 
 The pointed Checra, by thy fingers whirl'd, 
 Fierce Kytabh shall destroy and Medhu grim 
 To black despair and deep destruction hurl'd. 
 Such views my senses dim. 
 My eyes in darkness swim : 
 What eye can bear thy blaze, what utt'rance tell 
 Thy deeds with silver trump or many- wreathed shell ? 
 
 Omniscient Spirit, whose all-ruling pow'r 
 
 Bids from each sense bright emanations beam ; 
 Glows in the rainbow, sparkles in the stream, 
 .Smiles in the bud, and glistens in the flow'r ; 
 That crowns each vernal bow'r ; 
 
 Sighs in the gale, and warbles in the throat 
 Of ev'ry bird, that hails the bloomy spring. 
 Or tells his love in many a liquid note, 
 Whilst envious artists touch the rival string, 
 J 
 
A HYMN TO XA Ra'VeNA. 
 
 Till rocks and forests ring ; 
 Breathes in rich fragrance from the sandal grove, 
 Or where the precious musk-deer playful rove ; 
 In dulcet juice from clust'ring fruit distills, 
 And burns salubrious in the tasteful clove : 
 Soft banks and verd'rous hills 
 Thy present influence fills ; 
 In air, in floods, in caverns, woods, and plains ; 
 Thy will inspirits all, thy sov'reign M^ya reigns. 
 
 Blue crystal vault, and elemental fires. 
 
 That in th' ethereal fluid blaze and breathe ; 
 Thou, tossing main, whose snaky branches wreathe 
 This pensile orb with intertwisted gyres ; 
 Mountains, whose radiant spires 
 Presumptuous rear their summits to the skies. 
 And blend their em'rald hue with sapphire light ; 
 Smooth meads and lawns, that glow with varying dyes 
 Of dew-bespangled leaves and bloffbms bright, 
 Hence ! vanish from my sight : 
 Delusive Pictures ! unsubstantial shows ! 
 My soul absorb'd One only Being knows, 
 Of all perceptions One abundant source. 
 Whence ev'ry object ev'ry moment flows : 
 Suns hence derive their force. 
 Hence planets learn their course ; 
 But suns and fading worlds I view no more ; 
 God only I perceive ; God only I adore. 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 S E R E S W A T Y. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 _j[HE Hindu Goddesses are uniformly represented as the 
 subordinate powe^^s of their respective lords : thus Lacshmy, 
 the consort of Vishnu the Preserver, is the Goddess o^ abundance 
 and prosperity ; Bhava ny, the wife of Maha de v, is the genial 
 power of fecundity ; and Sereswaty, whose husband was the 
 Creator Brehma , possesses the powers of Imagination and 
 Invention, which may justly be termed creative. She is, 
 therefore, adored as the patroness of the fine arts, especially of 
 Music and Bhetoric, as the inventress of the Sanscrit Lansfuaofe, 
 of the Devandgry Letters, and of the sciences, which writing 
 perpetuates ; so that her attributes correspond with those of 
 Minerva Musica, in Greece and Italy, who invented the flute, 
 and presided over literature. In this character she is addressed 
 in the following ode, and particularly as the Goddess of Harmony; 
 since the Indians usually paint her with a musical instrument 
 in her hand : the seven notes, an artful combination of which 
 constitutes Music and variously afiects the passions, are feigned 
 to be her earliest production ; and the greatest part of the 
 Hymn exhibits a correct delineation of the Ba gma la , or 
 Necklace of Musical Modes, which may be considered as . the 
 most pleasing invention of the ancient Hindus, and the most 
 beautiful union of Painting with poetical Mythology and the 
 genuine theory of Music. 
 
 The different position of the tivo semitones in the scale oi seven 
 notes gives birth to seven primary modes ; and, as the whole 
 series consists of tivelve semito»nes, every one of which may be 
 made a modal note or tonic, there are in nature, (^though not 
 universally in practice^ seventy-seven other modes, which may , 
 
76 THE ARGUiMEM. 
 
 < 
 
 be called derivative : all the eighty-four are distributed by the 
 Persians, under the notion of locality, into three classes 
 consisting of ^t^'e/ ye rooms, twenty-four angles, Sind forty-eight 
 recesses ; but the Hindu arrangement is elegantly formed on 
 the variations of the Indian year, and the association of idaas ; 
 a powerful auxiliary to the ordinary effect of modulation. The 
 Modes, in this system, are deified ; and, as there are six 
 seasons in India, namely, two Springs, Summer, Autumn, and 
 two Winters, an original Ra g, or God of the Mode, is con- 
 ceived to preside over a particular season ; each principal mode 
 is attended by fve Ha gnys, or Nymphs of Harmony; each 
 has eight Sons, or Genii of the same divine Art ; and each 
 Ra g, with his family, is appropriated to a distinct season, in 
 which alone his melody can be sung or played at prescribed 
 hours of the day and night : the mode of Deipec, or Cupid the 
 Inflamer, is supposed to be lost ; and a tradition is current in 
 Hindustan, that a musician, who attempted to restore it, 
 was consumed by fire from heaven. The natural distribution 
 of modes would have heexi seven, thirty-three, and forty-four, 
 according to the number of the minor and major secondary tones ; 
 but this order was varied for the sake of the charming fiction 
 above-mentioned. Na ked, who is described in the third stanza, 
 was one of the first created beings, corresponding with the 
 Mercury of the Italians, inventor of the Vene, a fretted 
 instrument supported by two large gourds, and confessedly 
 the finest used in Asia. 
 
 A full discussion of so copious a subject would require a 
 separate dissertation ; but here it will be sufficient to say, that 
 almost every allusion and every epithet in the Poem, as well 
 as the names, are selected from approved treatises, either 
 originally Persian or translated from the Sanscrit, which 
 contain as lively a display of genius, as human imagination 
 ever exhibited. 
 
 The last couplet alludes to the celebrated place of pilgrimage, 
 at the confluence of the Gangcl and Yamnd, which the 
 Seresivaty, another sacred river, is supposed to join under ground. 
 
THE HYMN 
 
 Sweet grace of Brehma's bed ! 
 
 Thou/when thy glorious lord 
 Bade airy nothing breathe and bless his pow'r, 
 
 Satsf^ith illumin'd head, 
 
 And, in sublime accord, 
 Sev'n sprightly notes, to hail th' auspicious hour, 
 
 Ledst from their secret bow'r : 
 
 They drank the air ; they came 
 
 With many a sparkling glance. 
 
 And knit the mazy dance. 
 Like yon bright orbs, that gird the solar flame. 
 
 Now parted, now combin'd. 
 Clear as thy speech and various as thy mind. 
 
 Young Passions at the sound 
 
 In shadowy forms arose, 
 O'er hearts, yet uncreated, sure to reign ; 
 
 Joy, that o'erleaps all bound. 
 
 Grief, that in silence grows, 
 Hope, that with honey blends the cup of pain. 
 
 Pale Fear, and stern Disdain, 
 
 Grim Wrath's avenging band, 
 
 Love, nurs'd in dimple smooth. 
 
 That ev'ry pang can soothe ; 
 But, Avhen soft Pity her meek trembling hand 
 
 Stretch'd, like a new-born girl. 
 Each sigh was music,^and each tear a pearl. 
 
 Thee her great parent owns 
 All-ruling Eloquence, 
 That, like full Gang a, pours her stream divine 
 Alarming states and thrones : 
 
78 A HYMN TO SERESWATY. 
 
 To fix the flying sense 
 Of words, thy daughters, by the varied line 
 
 (Stupendous art !) was Thine ; 
 
 Thine, with pointed reed 
 
 To give primeval Truth 
 
 Th' unfading bloom of youth, 
 And paint on deathless leaves high Virtue's meed : 
 
 Fair Science, heav'n-born child, 
 And playful Fancy on thy bosom smil'd. 
 
 "Who bids the fretted Vene 
 
 Start from his deep repose, 
 And wakes to melody the quiv'ring frame ? 
 
 What youth with goldlike mien 
 
 O'er his bright shoulder throws 
 The verdant gourd, that swells with struggling flame ? 
 
 Na red, immortal name ! 
 
 He, like his potent Sire, 
 
 Creative spreads around 
 
 The mighty world of sound. 
 And calls from speaking wood ethereal fire ; 
 
 While to th' accordant strings 
 Of boundless heav'ns and heav'nly deeds he sings. 
 
 But look ! the jocund hours 
 
 A lovelier scene display. 
 Young HiNDOL sportive in his golden swing 
 
 High-canopied with flow'rs ; 
 
 While Rdgnys ever gay 
 Toss the light cordage, and in cadence sing 
 
 The sweet return of Spring : 
 
 Here dark Virdwer stands ; 
 
 There i^c^mcarz/ divine 
 
 And fawn-eyed Lelit shine ; 
 But aiern Daysdsha \esids her warring bands, 
 
 And slow in ebon clouds 
 Petmevjary her fading beauty shrouds. 
 
A HYMN TO SERESWATY. 
 
 Ah! where has Deipec veil'd 
 
 His flame-encircled head ? 
 "Where flow his lays too sweet for mortal ears ? 
 
 O loss how lon^ boAvail'd ! 
 
 Is yellow Cdmod fled ? 
 And blythe Cdrndty vaunting o'er her peers ? 
 
 "Whe^se stream Cay da rs tears 
 
 Intent on scenes above, 
 
 A be&uteous anchorite ? 
 
 No more shall Daysa bright 
 With gentle numbers call her tardy love ? 
 
 Has Netta, martial maid, 
 Lock'd in sad slumbers her sky-temper'd blade ? 
 
 Once, when the vernal noon 
 
 Blaz'd with resistless glare, 
 The Sun's eye sparkled, and a God was born : 
 He smil'd ; but vanish'd soon 
 
 Then groan' d the northern air ; 
 The clouds, in thunder mutt'ring sullen scorn, 
 
 Delug'd the thirsty corn. 
 
 But, earth-born artist, hold ! 
 
 If e'er thy soaring lyre 
 
 To Deipec s notes aspire. 
 Thy strings, thy'^bow'r, thy breast with rapture bold, 
 
 Bed lightning shall consume ; 
 Nor can thy sweetest song avert ^lie doom. 
 
 See sky-form'd Maygh descend 
 
 In^fertilisirig rain. 
 Whilst in his hand a falchion gleams unsheath'd ! 
 
 Soft nymphs' his car attend, 
 
 And raise the golden grain. 
 Their tresses dank with dusky spikenard wreath'd : 
 
 (A sweeter gale ne'er breath'd) 
 
 Tenca with laughing eyes, 
 
 And Gitjrys bloomy cheek, 
 
80 A HYMN TO SERESWATY. 
 
 < 
 
 Mela r with dimple sleek , 
 On whose fair front two musky crescents rise : 
 
 While Day sea r his rich neck 
 And mild Bhopa ly with fresh jasmin deck. 
 
 Is that the King of Dread 
 
 "With ashy musing face, 
 From whose moon-silver'd locks fam'd Ganga springs ? 
 
 'Tis Bhairan, whose gay bed 
 
 Five blushing damsels grace, "^ 
 
 And rouse old Autumn with immortal strings, 
 
 Till ev*ry forest rings ; 
 
 Benga ly lotos-crown'd, 
 
 Vaira ty like the morn, 
 
 Sindvy with looks of scorn. 
 And Bhairavy, her brow with Champa s bound ; 
 
 But Medhuma dha's eyes 
 Speak love, and from her breast pomegranates rise. 
 
 Sing loud, ye lucid spheres ; 
 
 Ye gales, more briskly play. 
 And wake with harmony the drooping meads : 
 
 The cooler season cheers 
 
 Each bird, that panting lay, 
 And SiRY bland his dancing bevy leads 
 
 Hymning celestial deeds : 
 
 Marva with robes like fire, 
 
 Vasant whose hair perfumes 
 
 With musk its rich-eyed plumes, 
 A sa very, whom list'ning asps admire, 
 
 Dhena sry, flow'r of glades, 
 And Ma Isry, whom the branching Amra shades. 
 
 Malcaus apart reclines 
 
 Bedeck'd with heav*n-strung pearls, 
 Blue-mantled, wanton, drunk with youthful pride ; 
 
 Nor with vain love repines, 
 
 "While softly-smiling^ girls 
 
A HTMX TO MERES WATT, 81 
 
 > 
 
 Melt on his cheek or frolic by his side, 
 
 And wintry winds deride ; 
 
 Shamhha wty leads along 
 
 Cocabh with kerchief rent, 
 
 And Gailry wine-besprent, 
 Warm Guncary, and Toda sweet in song, 
 
 Whom antelopes surround 
 With smooth tall necks, and quaff the streaming sound. 
 
 Nor d^em these nuptial joys 
 
 With lovely fruit unblest : 
 No ; from each God an equal race proceeds, 
 
 From each eight blooming boys ; 
 
 Who, their high birth confess'd, : 
 
 With infant lips gave breath to living reeds 
 
 In valleys, groves, and meads : 
 
 Mark how they bound and glance ! 
 
 Some climb the vocal trees, 
 
 Some catch the sighing breeze, 
 Some, like new stars, with twinkling sandals dance ; 
 
 Some the young Shamma snare, 
 Some warble wild, and some the burden bear. 
 
 These are thy wond'rous arts ; 
 
 Queen of the flowing speech, 
 Thence Sereswaty nam'd and Va ny bright ! 
 
 Oh, joy of mortal hearts. 
 
 Thy mystic wisdom teach ; 
 Expand thy leaves, and, with ethereal light, 
 
 Spangle ^he veil of night. 
 
 If Lepit please thee more. 
 
 Or Bra hmy, awful name, 
 
 Dread Bra hmy's aid we claim, ' - 
 
 And thirst, VaIjde vy, for thy balmy lore 
 
 Drawn from that rubied cave. 
 Where meek-ey'd pilgrinis hail the triple w^ave. » ' 
 
 K 
 
A HYMN 
 
 TO 
 
 o 
 
 a A N G A^. 
 
 ft 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 This poem would be rather obscure without geo^aphical 
 notes ; but a short introductory explanation will supply the 
 place of them, and give less interruption to the reader. 
 
 We are obliged to a late illustrious Chinese monarch named 
 Ca.n-hi'', who directed an accurate survey to be made of Potyid 
 or (as it is called by the Arabs) Tebhut, for our knowledge, 
 that a chain of mountains nearly parallel with Imaus, and 
 called Cantesd by the Tartars, forms a line of separation 
 between the sources of two vast rivers ; which, as we have 
 abundant reason to believe, run at first in opposite directions, 
 and, having finished a winding circuit of two thousand miles, 
 meet a little below Dha cd, so as to inclose the richest and 
 most beautiful peninsula on earth, in which the British nation, 
 after a prosperous course of brilliant actions in peace and war, 
 have now the principal sway. These rivers are deified in 
 India ; that, which rises on the Western edge of the mountain, 
 being considered as the daughter of Maha de va or Siva, and 
 the other as the son of Brahma : their loves, wanderings, and 
 nuptials are the chief subject of the following Ode, which is 
 feio'ned to have been the work of a Bra hmen, in an early, 
 age of Hindu antiquity, who, by a prophetical spirit, discerns 
 the toleration and equity of 'the British government, and 
 concludes with a prayer for it9 peaceful duration under good 
 laws well administered. 
 
m» ARGrMiNT. m 
 
 After a general description of the Ganges, an account i» 
 given of her fabulous birth, like that of Pallas, from the 
 forehead of Siva, the Jupiter Tonans and Genitor of thp 
 Latins ; and the creation of her* lover by an act of Brahmd's 
 wilj is the subject of another stanza, in which his course is 
 delineated through the country of Potyid^ by the name of 
 Sanpd, or Supreme Bliss, where he passes near the fortress of 
 JRimbU, the island of Palte or Yambro (known to be the seat 
 of a high priestess almost equally venerated with the Goddess 
 Bhawa nij and 'Ptashilhumbo (as a Potya or Tebhutian would 
 pronounce it), or the sacred mansion; of the Xawa next in^ 
 dignity to that of PCtala, who resides in a city, to the south of 
 the Sanpd, which the Italian travellers write Sgigatzhe, but 
 which, according to the letters, ought rather to be written in a 
 manner, that would appear still more barbarous in our ortho- 
 graphy. The Brahmaputra is not mentioned again till the 
 twelfth stanza, where his progress is traced, by very probable 
 conjecture, through Rangama ti, the ancient Hangamriticd or 
 Rangamar, celebrated for the finest spikenard, and Srihdt or 
 Siret, the Serratce of Elian, whence the fragrant essence ex- 
 tracted from the Malobathrum, called Sa^dahhj the' Persians y. 
 smd Te j apa tra h J the Indians, was carried by the Persian 
 gulf to Syria, and from that coast into Greece and Italy. It is 
 not, however, positively certain, that the Brahmaputra rises 
 as it is here described : two great geographers are decidedly of 
 opposite opinions on this very point ; nor is it impossible that 
 the Indian river may be one arm of the Sanpd and the Nau- 
 cyan, another ; diverging from the mountains of Asha^m^ 
 after they have been enriched by many rivers from the rocks 
 of China. 
 
 The fourth VLnd. fifth stanzas represent the Goddess obstruct- 
 ed in her passage to the west by the hills of Emodi, so called 
 from a Sanscrit word signifying snow, from which also are 
 derived both Imaus and Hima laya or Himola. The sixth 
 describes her, after her entrance into Hindustan through the 
 straits of Ciipala, flowing near Samhal, the Samhalaca of* 
 
8"4 THE argume:ht. 
 
 'Ptolemy, famed for a beautiful plant of the like name, and thence 
 to the once opulent city and royal place of residence, Co. mjacuvja, 
 erroneously named Calinipaxa by the Greeks, and Canauj, not 
 very accuratel}'-, by the modern Asiatics: here she is join- 
 ed by the Calinadi, and pursues her course to Praya^ga, 
 whence the people of Baha r were named Prasii, and 
 where the Yamunct, having received the Sereswati below 
 Indar'prestlia or Dehli, and watered the- poetical ground 
 of MatVmra^ and Agard, mingles her noble stream with the 
 Gangcl close to the modern fort of Ilahaijdd. This place- 
 is considered as" the confluence of three sacred rivers, and 
 known by the name of I'riveni, or the th^ee flaited locks ; from 
 which a number of pilgrims, who there begin the ceremonies 
 to be .completed at Gaijd, are continually bringing vases of 
 water, which they preserve with superstitious veneration, and 
 are greeted by all the Hindus, who meet them on their return. 
 Six of the principal rivers, which bring their tribute to the 
 Oayiges, are next enumerated, and are succinctly described from 
 real properties : thus the Gandac, which the Greeks knew by 
 a similar name, abounds, according to Giorgi, with crocodiles of 
 eriormous magnitude ; and the Malm,nadi runs by the plain of 
 Gaura, once a populous district with a magnificent capital, 
 from which the Bengalese were probably called Gangaridce, but 
 now the seat of desolation, and the haunt of wild beasts. From 
 'Prayaga she hastens to Casi, or as the Muslimans name it, 
 Benares ; and here occasion is taken to condemn the cruel and 
 intolerant spirit of the crafty tyrant Aurangzi b, whom the 
 Hindus of Cashmir call Aurangasilr, or the Demon, not the 
 Ornament, of the Throne. She next^ bathes the skirts of 
 Pa^taliputra, changed into Patna, which, both in situation and 
 name, ao-rees better on the whole with the ancient Palibothra, 
 than either Praya'^ga, or Ca^nyacuvja : if Megasthenes and the 
 ambassadors of Seleucus visited the last-named city, and called 
 it Palibothra, they were palpably mistaken. After this are 
 introduced the beautiful hill of Miictigiri, or Mengir, and the 
 wonderful pool of Sita^, which takes its name from the wife of 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 85 
 
 Ha ma, whose conquest of Sinhaldivlp, or Sildn, and victory- 
 over the giant Ra tcan, are celebrated by the immortal Va Imicl, 
 and by other epic poets of India. 
 
 The pleasant hills of Ca Itgra m and Ganga -presa d are 
 the^ introduced, and give occasion to deplore and extol the late 
 excelllent Augustus Clevland, Esq. who nearly completed by 
 lenity the glorious work, which severity could not have accom- 
 plished, of civilizing a ferocious race o? Indians, whose mountains 
 were formerly, perhaps, a rocky island, or washed at least by 
 that sea, from wflich the fertile champaign of Bengal has been 
 gained in a course of ages. The western arm of the Ganges is 
 called Blia girathi, from a poetical fable of ^ demigod or holy 
 man, named Bha gixatlia, whose devotion had obtained from 
 Siva the privilege of leading after him a great part of the 
 heavenly water, and who drew it accordingly in two branches ; 
 which embrace the fine island, now ^denominated from 
 Ka simba zdr, and famed for the defeat of the monster Sirajud- 
 daulah, and, having met near the venerable Hindu seminary 
 of Nawadwip or Nediya , flow in a copious stream by the several 
 European settlements, and reach the Bay at an island which 
 assumes the name of Sa gar, either from the S^a or from an 
 ancient Raja of distinguished piety. , The Sundarabans or 
 Beautiful Woods, an appellation to which they are justly entitled, 
 are incidentally mentioned, as lying between the Bhagriat'hi 
 and the Great River, or Eastern arm, which, xby its junction 
 with the Brahma putra, forms many considerable islands ; 
 one of which, as well as ^ town near the conflux, derives its 
 name from Lacohnii, the Goddess of Abundance. , ' 
 
 It will soon be perceived, that th.efo7^m of the stanza, which 
 is partly borrowed from Ghay, and to which he was probably 
 partial, as he uses it six times in nine, is enlarged in the following 
 liymri by a line of fourteen syllables, expressing the long and 
 solemn march of the great Asiatic rivers. 
 
THE HYMN. 
 
 How sweetly Ganga^ smiles, and glides 
 Luxuriant o'er her broad autumnal bed ! 
 Her waves perpetual verdure spread, 
 Whilst health and plenty deck her golden sides : 
 As when an eagle, child of light, 
 On Cdmhalas unmeasur'd height. 
 By Potala, the pontiff's throne rever'd, 
 0*er her eyry proudly rear'd 
 Sits brooding, and her plumage vast expands, 
 Thus Ganga o'er her cherish'd lands. 
 To BrahmcVs grateful race endear'd. 
 Throws wide her fost'ring arms, and on her banks divine 
 Sees temples, groves, and glitt'ring towVs, that in her 
 
 crystal shine. ] 
 
 Above the stretch of mortal ken, 
 On bless'd Caila sas top, where ev*ry stem 
 Glow'd with a vegetable gem, 
 Mahe sa stood, the dread and joy of men ; 
 While Pa rvati, to gain a boon, 
 Fix'd on his locks a beamy moon. 
 And hid his frontal eye, in jocund play, 
 With reluctant sweet delay : 
 All nature straight was lock'd in dim eclipse 
 Till Bra limans pure, with hallow'd lips 
 And warbled pray'rs restor'd the day ; 
 When Gaxga from his brow by heav'nly fingers press'd 
 Sprang radiant, and descending grac'd the caverns of 
 
 the west. ] 
 
THE HYMN TO GANGa' 87 
 
 > 
 
 The sun's car blaz'd, and laugh'd the morn ; 
 What time near proud Cantesa's eastern bow'rs, 
 (While Devatas rain'd living flow'rs) 
 A river-god, so Brahmd will'd, was born, 
 And roll'd mature his vivid stream 
 Impetuous with celestial gleam : 
 The charms of Ganga' through all worlds proclaim'd, 
 Soon his youthful breast inflam'd, 
 But destiny the bridal hour delay'd ; 
 Then, distant from the west*ring maid, 
 He flow'd, now blissful Sanpd nam*d, 
 By Falte crown'd with hills, bold Rimhu's tow'ring state, 
 And where sage Trashilhumho hails her Lama's form renate. 
 
 But she, whose mind, at Siva^s nod, 
 
 The picture of that sov'reign youth had seen, 
 
 With graceful port and warlike mien, 
 In arms and vesture like his parent God, 
 
 Smit with the bright idea rush'd. 
 
 And from her sacred mansion gush'd. 
 
 Yet ah ! with erring step — The western hills 
 
 Pride, not pious ardour, fills : 
 
 In fierce confed'racy the giant bands 
 
 Advance with venom-darting hands. 
 
 Fed by their own malignant rills ; 
 
 Nor could her placid grace their savage fury quell : 
 
 The madding rifts and should'ring crags her foamy flood 
 
 repell ] 
 " Confusion wild and anxious wo 
 Haunt your waste, brow, she said, unholy rocks, 
 Far from these nectar-dropping locks ! 
 But thou, lov'd Father, teach my waves to flow." 
 Loud thunder her high birth confess'd ; 
 Then from th* inhospitable west 
 She turnM, and, gliding o'er a lovelier plain, 
 Cheer'd the pearled East again : 
 Through groves of nard she roU'd, o*er spicy reed», 
 
8^ "^ THE HYMN TO GANGa'! 
 
 Through golden vales and em'rald meads ; 
 Till, pleased with Indra's fair domain, 
 She won through yielding marl her heav'n-directed way : 
 With lengthen'd notes her eddies curl'd, and pour*d 
 
 a blaze of d*ay. ] 
 
 Smoothly by SamhaVs flaunting bow'rs. 
 Smoothly she flows, where Calinadi brings 
 To Canyacuvja, seat of kings, 
 On prostrate waves her tributary flow'rs ; 
 Whilst Yamufid, whose waters clear 
 Fam'd Indraprestha^s vallies cheer, 
 With Sere'swati knit in mystic chain, 
 Gurgles o'er the vocal plain 
 Oi Mathurd, by sweet Brinda van's grove, 
 Where Gopas love-lorn daughters rove, 
 And hurls her azure stream amain, 
 
 Till blest Prayd^ya^s point beholds three mingling tides, 
 Where pilgrims on the far-sought bank drink nectar, 
 
 as it glides. ] 
 
 From Himolas perennial snow. 
 And southern Palamau's less daring steep, 
 Sonorous rivers, bright though deep, 
 O'er thirsty deserts youth and freshness throw. 
 ' A goddess comes,' cried Gumti chaste. 
 And roird her flood with zealous haste : 
 Her foUow'd Sona with pellucid wave 
 Dancing from her diamond cave, 
 Broad Gogra, rushing swift from northern hills, 
 Ked Gandac, drawn by crocodiles,, 
 (Herds, drink not there, nor^ herdsmen, lave !) 
 Cosa, whose bounteous hand Nepa iian odour flings,; 
 And 'Mahanadi laughing wild at cities, thrones, and kings. 
 
 Thy temples, Ca si , nexi^ she sought, 
 And verdVous plains by tepid breezes fann'd. 
 Where health extends her pinions bland, 
 Thy groves, were pious Valmic sat and thought, 
 
THE IIYMX TO CAXGA'f 89 
 
 > 
 
 "Where Vydsa pour'd the strain sublime, 
 That lauo-hs at all-consumino' time, 
 
 And Brdhmans rapt the lofty Veda sing. • 
 
 Cease, oh ! cease — a ruffian king, 
 The demon of his empire, not the grace, 
 His ruthless bandits bids deface 
 The shrines, whence gifts ethereal spring : 
 So shall his* frantic sons with discord rend his throne, 
 And his fair-smiling realms be sway'd by nations yet 
 
 unlaiown.] 
 
 Less hallow'd scenes her course prolong ; 
 But Cdma, restless pow'r, forbids delay : . 
 
 To love all virtues homage pay, 
 E'en stern religion yields. How full, how strong 
 Her trembling panting surges run, 
 Where Pa talis immortal son 
 To domes and turrets gives his awful name 
 Erao-rant in the oales of fame ! 
 Nor stop, were Ka. ma , bright from dire alarms. 
 Sinks in chaste Si tas constant arms, 
 While bards his wars and truth proclaim : 
 There from a fiery cave the bubbling crystal flows. 
 And Muctigir, delightful hill, with mirth and beauty glows. 
 
 Oh ! rising bow'rs, great Ca u s boast. 
 And thou, from Gangd nam'd, enchanting mount, 
 AVhat voice your wailings can recount 
 Borne by shrill echoes o'er each howling coast. 
 When He, who bade vour forests bloom, 
 Shall seal his eyes, in iron gloom ? 
 Exalted youth ! The godless mountaineer. 
 Beaming round his thickets drear. 
 Whom rigour fir'd, nor legions could appall, 
 I see before thy mildness fall, 
 Thy wisdom love, thy justice fear : 
 
 A race, whom rapine nurs'd, whom gory murder stains, ' 
 Thy fair example wins to peace, to gentle virtue trains. 
 
 L 
 
90 THE HYMN TO QANQA' 
 
 i 
 
 But mark, where old Bha'gi rath leads 
 (This boon his pray'rs ofMaha dev obtain : 
 Grace more distinguish'd who could gain ?) 
 Here calmer current o'er his western meads, 
 Which trips the fertile plains along, *- 
 
 Where vengeance waits th' oppressor's wrong ; 
 Then girds, fair Nawadwip, thy shaded cells, 
 Where the Pendit musing dwells ; 
 Thence by th' abode of arts and commerce glides, 
 Till Sa'^gar breasts the bitter tides : 
 While She, whom struggling passion swells, 
 Beyond the labyrinth green, where pards by moonlight 
 
 prowl,] 
 With rapture seeks her destin'd lord, and pours her 
 
 mighty soul.] 
 Meanwhile o'er FStyid's musky dales, 
 Gay Rangamar, where sweetest spikenard blooms. 
 And Siret, fam'd for strong perfumes. 
 That, flung from shining tresses, lull the gales, 
 Wild Brahmaputra winding flows. 
 And murmurs hoars his am'rous woes ; 
 Then, charming Gaxga seen, the heav'nly boy 
 Bushes with tumultuous joy : 
 (Can aught but Love to men or Gods be sweet ? ) 
 When she, the long-lost youth to greet. 
 Darts, not as earth-born lovers toy. 
 
 But blending her fierce waves, and teeming verdant isles ; 
 While buxom Lacshmi^ crowns their .bed, and sounding 
 
 ocean smiles.] 
 What name, sweet bride, will best allure 
 Thy sacred ear, and give thee honour due ? 
 Vishnupedi ? Mild BhishmasH ? 
 Smooth Suranwmagd 1 Irisrotd pure ? 
 By that I call ? Its pow'r confess ; 
 With growing gifts thy suppliants bless, 
 Who with full sails in many a light-oar'd boat 
 
THE HYMN TO GA^'GA . 91 
 
 On thy jasper bosom float ; * 
 
 Nor frown, dread Goddess, on a peerless race 
 With iib'ral heart and martial grace, 
 Wasted iiom colder isles remote : 
 As they preserve our laws, and bid our terror cease, 
 So be their darling laws preserv'd in wealth, in joy, 
 
 in peace !] 
 
THE 
 
 FIRST NEMEAN ODE 
 
 OF 
 
 PINDAR. 
 
 I. 1. 
 CALM breathing-place of Alpheus dread, 
 
 Oetygia, graceful branch of Syracuse renown'd. 
 
 Young Diana's rosy bed, 
 
 Sister of Delos, thee, with sweet, yet lofty, sound 
 
 Bursting numbers call, to raise 
 
 Of tempest-footed steeds the trophies glorious 
 
 (Thus Etiv SAN Jove we praise) ; 
 
 AYhile Chromius' car invites, and Nemea's plain, 
 
 For noble acts victorious 
 
 To weave th' encomiastic strain. 
 
 I. 2. 
 From prospering Gods the song begins ; 
 Next hails that godlike man and virtue's holy meeds : 
 He the flow'r of greatness wins, 
 
 Whom smiUng fortune crowns ; and vast heroic deeds 
 Ev'rymuse delights to sing. 
 Now wake to that /air isle the splendid story. 
 Which the great Olympian king, 
 JovE, gave to Proserpine, and wav'd his locks 
 Vowing, that, supreme in glory, 
 Fam'd for sweet fruits and nymph-lov^d rocks, 
 
 I. 3. 
 Sicilia's full nutricious breast 
 With tow'r'd and wealthy cities he would crown. 
 
THE FIRST NEMEAN ODE. 93 
 
 Her the son of Saturn bless'd 
 
 AVith suitors brazen-arm' d for war's renown 
 
 By lance and fiery steed ; yet oft thy leaves^ • 
 
 Olympic olive, bind their hair 
 
 In wreathy gold. Great subjects I prepare ; 
 
 But none th' immortal verse deceives. 
 
 II. 1. 
 
 Oft in the portals was I plac'd 
 
 Of that guf^t-loving man, and pour'd the dulcet strain, 
 
 Where becoming dainties grac'd 
 
 His hospitable board ; for ne'er with efforts vain 
 
 Strangers to his mansion came : 
 
 And thus the virtuous, when detraction rages, 
 
 Quench with liberal streams her flame. 
 
 Let each in virtue's path right onward press. 
 
 As each his art engages, 
 
 And, urg'd by genius, win success. 
 
 II. 2. 
 Laborious action Strength applies. 
 And wary conduct. Sense : the future to foresee 
 Nature gives to few, the wise. 
 Agesidamus' son, she frankly gave to thee 
 Pow'rful might and wisdom deep. 
 I seek not in dark cells the hoarded treasure 
 Grovling ivith low care to keep. 
 But, as wealth flows, to spread it ; and to hear 
 Loud fame, with ample measure 
 Cheering my friends, since hope and fear 
 
 • II. 3. 
 
 Assail disastrous men. The praise 
 
 Of Hercules with rapture I embrace : 
 
 On the heights, which virtues raise. 
 
 The rapid legend old his' name shall place ; 
 
 For, when he ht^ook^d no more the cheerless gloom, 
 
 And brust into the blaze of day, 
 
94 THE FIRST NEMEAN ODE. 
 
 The child of Jove with his twin-brother lay, 
 Rt fulgent from the sacred womb. 
 
 Ill 1. 
 
 Not unobserv'd the godlike boy 
 
 By JujSO golden-thron'd the saifron cradle press'd ; 
 
 Straight heav'n's queen with furious joy 
 
 Bade hideous dragons fleet th' unguarded floor infest : 
 
 They, the portals op'ning wide, 
 
 E-oll'd throujrh the chamber's broad reces*s tremendous, 
 
 And in jslws Jlre-darting tried 
 
 The slumb'ring babe to close. He, starting light, 
 
 Beard his hold head stupendous, 
 
 And first in battle prov'd his might. 
 
 III. 2. 
 "With both resistless hands he clasp'd 
 Both struggling horrid pests, and cloth'd their necks with 
 
 death ;] 
 They expiring, as he grasp'd, 
 Pour'd from their throats compress'd the foul envenom'd 
 
 breath.] 
 Horror seiz'd the female train, 
 AVho near Alcmena's genial couch attended : 
 She, from agonizing pain 
 Yet weak, unsandaVd and unmantled rush'd, 
 And her love'd charge defended, 
 "Whilst he the fiery monsters crush'd. 
 
 III. 3. 
 
 Swift the Cadmean leaders ran 
 
 In brazen mail precipitately bold : 
 
 First Amphitryon, dauntless man, 
 
 Bar'd his rais'd falchion from its sheathinof Sfold, 
 
 While griding anguish pierc'd his fluttering breast ; 
 
 For private woes most keenly bite 
 
 Self-loving man ; but soon the heart is light, 
 
 With son-ow, not its own, oppress'd. 
 
THE FIRST NEMEAX ODE. 95 
 
 IV. 1. 
 
 Standing in deep amazement wild 
 
 With rapt'rous pleasure mix'd he saw th' enormous force, • 
 
 Saw the valour of his child : 
 
 And fated heralds prompt, as heav'n had shap'd their 
 
 course,] 
 Wafted round the varied tale ; 
 
 Then call'd he from hio^h Jove's contiofuous reo'ion, 
 
 Him, whose warnings never fail, 
 
 TiREsiAs hlfnd, who told, in diction sage. 
 
 The chief and thronging leirion 
 
 What fortunes must his boy engage ; 
 
 IV. 2. 
 
 What lawless tyrants of the wood. 
 
 What serppnts he would slay, what monsters of the main. 
 
 What proud foe to human o-ood. 
 
 The worst of monstrous forms, that holy manhood stain, 
 
 His huge arm to death would dash : 
 
 How, when heav'n's host, o'er Phlegra's champaign 
 
 hasting,~\ 
 With embattled iriants ra^h 
 
 Vindictive warr'd, his pond'rous mace would storm 
 
 With dreadful strokes wid' -wasting, 
 
 And dust their o;litt'rino; locks deform, 
 
 IV. 3. 
 
 He told ; and how in blissful peace 
 
 Through cycles infinite of gliding time, 
 
 When his mortal task should cease, ' " 
 
 Sweet prize of perils hard and toil sublime. 
 
 In gorgeous mansions he should hold entranced 
 
 Soft Hebe, fresh with blooming grace. 
 
 And crown, exalting his majestic race. 
 
 The bridal feast near Jove advanc'd. 
 
AN 
 
 EXTEAOT 
 
 r 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BHU'SIIANDA' RA'MA^yAN 
 
 J_ HE beautiful and lofty mountain, called Neil, or azure, has a 
 pointed summit of pure gold : the holy trees, Peipel, Ber, and 
 PacTy flourish on its brow ; and its top is crowned with a pool 
 of water shining like diamonds of exquisite brilliancy : cl'ear^ 
 fresh, and sweet streams, displaying a rich variety of colours, 
 flow from all sides of it ; and thousands of birds warble rapturous 
 lays amorg the sacred branches. Here the Crow Bhu shanda , 
 who had been adorned with many virtues, and disgraced by 
 many vices, who had lived in every part of the universe, and 
 knew all events from the beginning of time, had fixed his abode. 
 Under the Peipel, he meditated on the divinity : under the 
 Pacr he poured forth invocations : under the shade of the Ber 
 he chanted the story of Visiin ; to hear which the feathered 
 inhabitants of woods and of waters assembled around him ; 
 and even Mahadato, in the form of the large wliite-'plumed 
 Mara l, perched on a bough, was delighted with listening to 
 the adventures of the all-good and all-powerful Ra m. 
 
 To this mountain the sage Eagle Gerhur, essence of all 
 amiable qualities who stands near Vislm himself, and is ridden 
 by that stupendous God, hastily took his flight, and was relieved, 
 on beholding it from the cares, which before oppressed him : 
 he bathed his pinions in the pool,'" and refreshed his beak with 
 a draught of the hallowed water. Just as Bhiishanda^ was 
 'opening his divine history, the king of air appeared in his 
 
AX F':X TRACT FRO:\T TnE !' ( 
 
 ) 
 
 presence : the wino-ed assembly paid him respectful homage, 
 saluted him with solemn expressions of reverence, and then, 
 addressing him with sweet words of affection, placed him oiT 
 a seat hecoming his high dignity. 
 
 ^'Monarch of birds, began the Crow, the sight of thee 
 transports me with joy, signify to me thy commands ; and 
 inform me what inducement has broug^ht thee to the mansion 
 of thy servant." "* 
 
 ^^Brother, answered Gerdr, the purpose of my visit Vv'as id. 
 part answered by my first view of thy charming retreat ; eaid 
 the doubts, which thou alone couldst have removed from this 
 breast, are now almost wholly dispersed : but listen to my recital. 
 
 "When the son of E-a wan, the giant, with a thousand arms, 
 had bound Rci in with a snake discharged from his bow, Nared 
 ^commissioned me to disentangle tke celestial warriour ; and 
 the couimisson was executed with faithful dispatch : but pride 
 arose in my heart ; and considering that even mortals are 
 exempt through devotion, from the shackles of terror, I 
 concluded that, if Ra ni had in truth been a deity ©f boundless 
 power, he could never have been made captive by the fold of 
 a reptile. All night was I disturbed by these embarrassing 
 reflexions ; and my arrogance, as the deliverer of a god, attained 
 ^such a height, that my reason had nearly forsaken me : I 
 retained, however, sense enough to seek a solution of my doubts; 
 and, hastening to my wise employer Na red, laid open to him 
 the secret of my bosom. 
 
 Thou art fallen, said the son of Biiehma , with a compas- 
 •sionate aspect, into the snares of passion, from ivhlcli the 'tWst 
 virtuous, ivhen they fail to exert their understandings, cannot' he 
 secure ; that appearance, hy which thou hast been caught, was 
 only the Ma ya , or deception of Vishn, which has often deluded 
 even me. To give thee perfect relief, exceeds my power : go to tlie 
 palace of my father, and implicitly folloio his directions. 
 
 '''With all imaginable swiftness I flew to the heaven of 
 Brehma , giving praises to my lord and rider Vishn, and 
 explained to the benign God, the grounds of my perplexity. * 
 
9S LAST BOOK or THi: ra*aia yan. 
 
 i 
 
 The Creator stood awhile in silence, reflecting on the glories 
 of Ra m, and the force of his illusions ; then, leaving his medi- 
 •tation, 7i is 7io wonder, ssiid he, that thou hast heen deceived hy 
 a 'power, Ji^om which I, as the very time of the creation, was not 
 tocempt. Ram has tried thee by a delusive appearance * and, 
 when thou hadst untwisted the living chain, which entangled him, 
 thou satst all night elated ivith pride, and contemplating thy own 
 py^owess. Hasten, therefore, to the palace of Ma hadayo, than 
 whom no deity better knows the supremacy of Ra m : he will 
 dissipate thy sorrows. 
 
 His words were instantly followed by my flight towards 
 Cai las, but T mefc the destroying power near the mansion of 
 ■ Cobayr, the wealthy genius of the north. Having listened 
 benignantly to my narrative, he thus instructed me : ' Thou art 
 under the influence of a strong passion, from which no discourse 
 of mine can so soon relieve thee^ as the coversation of religious 
 persons, and serious attention to the history of Vishn, related 
 by pious Munys in sweet accents. Without conversing with 
 the religious, the noble deeds of the preserving power cannot be 
 known ; without that knowledge, the passions cannot be 
 conquered ; without that conquest, true devotion cannot be 
 acquired ; and without that acquisition, whatever sacrifices may 
 be performed, or ceremonies observed, God will never be seen 
 by man. Fly, O Gerilr, to the regions of the west, and piously 
 attend, with birds of inferior wing, to the achievements of 
 Ra'^m ; as they will be related by the wise habitant of the azure 
 mountain, the virtuous Bhusanda : the relation will subdue thy 
 passion, and wholly dispel thy sorrows. Expect not a remedy 
 from me ; since thou hast entertained, proud thoughts concern-, 
 ing Ra m, by whom I have been highly favoured : besides, one 
 bird will convey instruction more effectually to another bird in 
 their common dialect.' 
 
 Not a moment was lost by me in seeking thy delightful 
 abode ; and the sight of it almost entirely destroyed my pride 
 with its bitter, but certain, fruit, affliction. Complete my re- 
 covery, beloved brother, by reciting the sacred story of Ra m." 
 
AN Extract from the 99 
 
 The devout Bhiisanda^ complied immediately with his re- 
 quest ; and having pronounced an eulogium on the incarnate 
 God, began with an account of his Accdar, or Descent; and, 
 then related the adventures of his childhood, the actions of his 
 you^h, and the circumstances of his marriage with Sei ta . He 
 next informed the attentive ea^le, how the machinations of 
 B'haIit, the half-brother of Ra^m, and of Caycai', his step- 
 mother, induced king Jesret, his father, to send him into the 
 woods, while the whole nation in agony mourned his loss : how 
 Lech'hmen, his affectionate brother, insisted on accompanying 
 him in exile ; how they meditated on providence in a great 
 forest, and afterwards passed the Ganga to preach lessons of 
 devotion in populous towns : he proceeded to the death of the 
 old Raja , the penitence of B'ha'^H, and his journey in pursuit 
 of Ra m, who, after long and earnest solicitation, returned to 
 Ayodhya, where he lived with the splendour of a divinity : he told^ 
 how Ra m again retired among the tickets, and there gave instruc- 
 tions to hermits and reverend Munys; how Lech'hmen was pro- 
 voked to disfigure a giantess, and slay two giants, the sister and 
 kinsmen of Ra wan ; how that imperious demon ^dolently 
 seized the incomparable Set ta , and bore her captive 
 to the place of his tyrannous empire, the isle of LxInca ; how 
 Ra^m, afflicted to excess, passed the whole rainy season upon a 
 mountain, having contracted a friendship with the race of 
 Apes,2,n6. appointed their chief, Hen u man, son of the wind, 
 to the command of his new-raised army ; how they discovered 
 the bower of Asoca's", in which Seita was confined ; how a 
 vast bridge was erected by them over the sea, from whii?Gh 
 Henu man leaped into the island, consoled the faithful Seita, 
 and set fire to the gardens of Ra ioan ; who, in a desperate 
 engagement, was routed and slain by Ra m ; lastly, how the 
 divine conqueror revisited his country, restored to joy its dis- 
 consolate inhabitants, conferred hiofh honon.r:^ on the learned 
 Bra hmens, treated his preceptor Ba sisht with such reverence, 
 that he drank the water in which he had v/ashed the feet i>f 
 * Jonesia of Doctor Roxburgh. 
 
i^'O LAST" BOOK OF THE RAMA'^iAX. 
 
 the Miinii, and instructed the humble Blia rt in celestial 
 knowledge ; how the Jia iiijs and highborn damsels, having- 
 bathed the \o\e\j Sei la , decorated her with inestimable jewels, 
 and offered her holy curds iii golden basons, crowned Avith 
 branches of Tulsij ; how the princes of the apes, and other wai'like 
 beasts, assumed the most beautiful human foriris ; how men 
 of all ranks, who flocked to the palace, forgetting their homes, 
 as the pious forget their enemies, concurred in singing the 
 praises of their king,, while the gods rained flowers from 
 heaven on the delighted assembly. 
 
 "The festivals and entertainments," added the crow, on his 
 receiving the sacred mark of vermilion, and ascending the throne- 
 with Seltd, "thou ssiwst, monarch of the air, and wast enrap- 
 tured with devout joy ; for Brahma, Mahddayo, Ndred, and 
 other deities, attended tilem ; nor wouldst thou be absent on so 
 signal an occasion. During this peign, no terrors alarmed, or 
 sorrows rent, the bosoms of his vot^aries ; all was love, piety, 
 concord ; the name of vice was unknown or unheard ; none 
 w^ere then infirm, none ignorant, none- distressed ; sweet and 
 salutary liquors flowed from every tree ; perpetual blossoms 
 laughed on the stalks, and perpetual fruit hung glittering from. 
 
 t]ie branches ; a cool placid gale blew without ceasing ; the 
 birds charmed each forest with afiteal melody ; and animals,, 
 the most opposite in their kinds, lived together, like the vener- 
 able cow with her own calf, in perfect amity, and even tender- 
 ness. Such were the blessings derived by mankind from Rdm,. 
 whose presence rendered the silver age equal in virtue and' 
 happiness to that of gold.^'' 
 
 As soon as Busunda had concluded his narration : '' O 
 adorable Ra «i," exclaimed tile eagle, " I revere thee for thy 
 power, and love thee for thy goodness ! Hadst thou not been 
 pleased to raise doubtsr in my mind, and, by thy divine Ma^ya^, 
 to beguile me into the sin of pride, how should I have been 
 directed to this noble mountain ? How should I have heard 
 the* recital of thy glorious actions ? How should the ardent 
 love of thee have been kindled in my bosom ?" 
 
AN KXTKACT lEOM HIE 
 
 1 
 
 101 
 
 *'Mc too," said the crow, " has Ra^in exalted, by procuring 
 me the honour of being thus consulted by the sovereign of 
 birds. To thee his affection has been signally manifested*; 
 and thou may-ist now cease to wonder, that the most eminent 
 amd^ig the deities, and the most virtuous Rishys, have fallen 
 under the dominion of the passions. What being exists, but 
 God, who was never seduced by the love of Avealth ; whom 
 nothing has provoked to wrath, or stimulated to vengeance ; 
 whom the pleasures of youth have not allured, nor female 
 beauty smitten with the shafts of large and languishing eyes ? 
 who can boast of a constant exemption from groundless terrore 
 and unavailino' orief ? Whose faiue has never been blemished 
 by pride ? AT horn has ambition never captivated Avith false 
 views of greatness ? All these temptations and blandishments 
 are the daughters of Ma ya , with whose fascinations, diffused 
 over the world, VisJin deludes all creatures' for their ultimate 
 advantacre. Be is the beinsf of beino-s, one substance 
 in three forms ; without mode, without quality, without passion ; 
 immense, incomprehensible, iiifinte, indivisible, immutable, 
 incorporeal, irresistible : His operations no mind can conceive : and 
 his will moves ail the inhabitants of the universe, as puj^pets are 
 moved by strings. The pious, whom he loves,, as a mother 
 loves her onl}^ infant, rejoice in his government, and exu't in 
 his glory ; while the irreligious, who are proud, ignorant, 
 captious, and madly impute to Ra m the consequences of 
 their own stupidity, vainly afflict themselves, and view all 
 oljects in false colours ; as they, whose e3'es are inf^an.ed, 
 suppose the moon also to be red : their folly would make tliem 
 believe, that the sun rises in the west, and their fears agitate 
 them, like small barques tossed hj th® waves. Were the 
 firmament illumined by sixteen moons, yet, if no sun rose, the 
 stars would not disappear : thus, without religion and humility, 
 vice and error cannot be dispersed. As an illustration of these 
 truths, hear, O Gerur, the story of my life ; and mark the sad 
 eflects of my sin. 
 
 " When Ra/ni was born in A udh, I repaired eagerly to his 
 
102 LAST BOOK OF THE RA MA YAN. 
 
 birthplace, attended him five years with assiduity, contemplat- 
 ing his beautiful features, and receiving happiness from the 
 sparkles of his eye. He used to laugh when I approached him, 
 and when I departed, to weep ': sometimes he tried to seize me 
 by the feet, and shed tears if I flew out of his reach. Can this, 
 I thought, can this he the rider of the universe ? Thus was I 
 entangled by his illusion, and my mind was perplexed with 
 doubts ; I became sad and pensive ; but the divine infant 
 laughed at my distress, One day, he ran suddenly to catch me ; 
 but seeing his body black and his feet ruddy,*! took my flight 
 aloft with inexpressible agitation : he stretched out his arm, 
 and how high soever I flew, the same arm pursued me at an 
 equal distance. As soon as I reached the heaven of Brahma, 
 I looked back, and still saw behind me the arm of Vishn; 
 amazed and stupefied, I closed my eyes in a trance and found 
 myself, when I opened them, near the city of Ayodhya. 
 
 '' On my return to the palace Jesret, I renewed my homage 
 to Ra^m ; but he made a sport of my confusion, which was so 
 great, that, as he laughed, I flew into his mouth : there I saw 
 myriads- of heavens infinitely splendid; myriads of Brahma* s 
 and Mohadayoa, myriads of suns, moons, and stars, gods and 
 goddesses, Ra^ja^'s and Ra^ivfs, and gazed beneath me on this 
 vast earth, girt with multitudinous seas, veined Avith rivers, 
 clothed with forests, and peopled with numberless animals. An 
 hundred complete years I dwelled in each heaven ; and travers^ 
 ing them all, was dazzled with their endless and unutterable 
 glories ; but, whithersoever T shaped my course, I beheld one 
 only, Ra^m, the same lovely infant, whose idea was impressed 
 indelibly on my mind. 
 
 Having spent a wonderful period of revolving ages in this 
 ethereal jaunt, I returned to my own habitation ; where I 
 heard, that Ra'^ni was become incarnate, and, hastening to the 
 place of his birth, I enjoyed the rapture of beholding him : yet 
 was my heart still agitated by a storm of passions, and a thou- 
 sand cares arose in my breast. Ra%i, knowing what anxiety his 
 deceptions had produced, again laughed, and I flefw out of his 
 
AN EXTRACT FROM THE 
 
 10;^ 
 
 mouth into open air. On finding that I had rambled over so 
 many worlds, and seen so many wonders in so few minutes, 
 and on considering the power of the divine spirit, I fell breath- 
 less to the ground : at length : ' Have pity, said 1, have pity 
 o»»me ; and cease, thou, who rewardest the devout ! cease to 
 delude and grieve thy humiliated votary.' The deity then 
 perceiving my unfeigned anguish, suspended the influence of his 
 Maia, placed his hands with gentleness on my head, relieved 
 at once my solicitude ; and, having mildly heard a fervent 
 effusion, which I pronounced with weeping eyes, commanded 
 me to ask for whatever I most desired : I asked for true piety 
 towards him ; and he gave it with gracious praise, added 
 to heivenly benedictions. Adore, therefore, and invoke perpe- 
 tually that invisible being, who, having no shape, is described in 
 the Vai/cls by a similitude, and compared to a bottomless ocean 
 of innumerable virtues." 
 
 " How salutary,'* said Geriir, "are the lessons of a spiritual 
 instructor ! If a hundred Brahmas and a hundred Mahadayos 
 had assisted me, I should not have been so effectually relieved." 
 
 After a long conversation between Biisund and his penitent 
 -visitor, in which they reciprocally told their most interesting 
 adventures, the crow discoursed more at large on the grandeur 
 of jRa m, and the blessings of the age, in which he appeared 
 on earth. " Very different," continued he, " will be the Col Yug, 
 or age of impurity ! Then shall priests, kings, and subjects, 
 be wholly abandoned to vice ; neglecting holy rites, and the 
 due observance of ranks ; not considering genuine piety, as the 
 true, and invaluable gem, which all ought to seek : such as 
 babble fastest will be Signified with the title of Pendits ; and 
 such as relate most untruths, with the epithet of virtuous ; 
 they who wear necklaces of beads, and the dress of Gosains, 
 will be reverenced as observers of inspired scripture ; and they 
 who suffer their nails^to grow unpaired, and their hair uncut, 
 or stand longest on one leg, holding the other in their hand, as 
 .devout Senniya sys .-the low cast of Shudrs will have Brdhmens 
 for their disciples, and presume to wear the same cord ; whil'e 
 
lOi LAST BOOR or THE IIA MA VAX. 
 
 tlie Brnhmens will bo distint^uished only by that mark, whicJi 
 they will be sure to display uncovered : they Avill be illiterate, 
 cQvetous, luxurious, inobservant of rites, and resembling bulls 
 without tlieir tails ; dissipating the property, not the ignorance, 
 or uneasiness, of their pupils ; and even parents will instruct 
 their children in gluttony, not in rehgion. Then will Raja s 
 be merciless, and profligate, putting Brdhmens to death, and 
 continually racking or amercing their subj6cts, numbers of 
 whom will die through want, since famine will from time to 
 time desolate whole provinces ; the clouds will ' shed no rain ; 
 and the ground will yield no return for the grains it has receiv- 
 ed : yet, even in this debased age, the miserable race of men 
 may be saved bv affectionate devotion towards Ra'^m, not ap- 
 pearing in external acts, but glowing in the recesses of the 
 heart." 
 
 " The disorders of that age," said the eagle, '* vvall, indeed, 
 be as terrilde, as the remedy is delightful, and certain." 
 
 '" Happy," said Bhnshunda, " will be they, who faithfully 
 apply it ; but tlie domination of pride is more or less absolute 
 in eveiy human breast : this abominable sin caused the many 
 changes of my form, and my condemnation to a lonely residence 
 among these rocks. 
 
 In a temple of M-iha, dayo I stood mvoking his name, 
 when the guide of my youth, my instructor in religious duties, 
 entered it with true humility ; yet such was my arrogance, from 
 a vain conceit of my own piety and knowledge, that I made 
 him no salutation, and showed him no respect. He opened not 
 his lips, nor was he moved to anger by my presumption ; but 
 the God, whom we adored, bore it not ^ so mildly, and in a tre- 
 mendous voice from above, thundered against me a sentence of 
 perpetual misery. This dreadful judgment threw my indulgent 
 preceptor into an agony of grief; his limbs trembled, his 
 tongue faultered ; and casting himself on the earth, with clasped 
 hands, he supplicated for a miligation of my doom. Such 
 benignity, and zeal, could not but appease the wrathful divinity, 
 who spoke thus from the summit of Ca da .v : * Justice requires 
 
AN EXTRACT FROM THE 105 
 
 the chastisement of this proud mortal, but thy piety has pro- 
 cured a remission of its greatest pain*. He shall suffer a thous- 
 and transmigrations, and in all of them shall exist without* 
 pleasure, but not without wisdom ; he shall be a constant 
 adoi<er of Vishn, and again shall assiduously invoke my name. 
 This blessing, too, shall attend him : he shall be loved by all.' 
 On leaving my human shape by death, I was re-born in that of 
 a serpent ; and in^all my metamorphoses, continued to worship 
 Maha^dayo, by whose grace I left each body, as a man puts off 
 his old vesture. 
 
 "After many changes I became a Bra kmen, but the seeds 
 of pride still germinating in my heart, I disliked the instruc- 
 tions of my father, and retiring to the woods and mountains, 
 meditated incessantly on the attributes of God ; there I heard 
 the discourses of a venerable Ricshy, with whom I had the 
 boldness to contend in argument, and to maintain the prefer- 
 ence of devotion towards the visible or incarnate, over that 
 towards the invisible deity. The sage, irritated by my ob- 
 stinate presumption, lost for a while the command of his temper, 
 and uttered an imprecation, in consequence of which I thus 
 exist as a bird of the lowest race ; but Maha^dayo, having 
 calmed his disturbed intellect, he repented of his anger, and 
 when I assumed my present figure, consoled me v/ith tender 
 expressions, gave me the Mentr, or Inca7itation of Ra^m, ad- 
 vised me to attend the God in his infancy, and afterwards to 
 seek this retirement, in which I have spent myriads of years : 
 he concluded with a benizon, confirmed by a voice from heaven, 
 saying : 'Granted be the wishes of the pious !' 
 
 Here has my opinion been more and more deeply fixed, 
 that the ignorant who neglect the cow CaIvid'hen, source of all 
 true felicity, and aspire only to sensual gratifications, resemble 
 those who go searching for the herb acmi, but only desire its 
 milk ; that men without religion, are like those who try to pass 
 the ocean without a ship ; and that, although the human soul 
 be an immortal emanation from thedivinity, they who are 
 swayed by their passions, become like parrots in a cage, or 
 
y y 
 
 106 LIST BOOK OF THE RA MA YAX. 
 
 apes confined by a chain. Not so the rehgious, who study the 
 Vayds, and perform good actions ; they resemble cows depas- 
 turing green plains, whose udders are distended with milk, 
 with which the herdsman fills his bowl ; then, having boiled 
 it, he lets it coo] in the fresh air, turns it into curd, and bisats 
 it into delicious butter. Piety is the fire, which increases the 
 goodness of the milk, burning away the stains of vice ; and 
 repentance constitutes the butter, which bemg converted into 
 oil, supplies the lamp of the understanding, by which divine 
 books are perused, and luminous truths discovered. Then the 
 propitious gods delight to co-operate with mortals ; in 
 each of whose corporeal tenses are many lattices where the 
 deities' continually ^keep watch; and, if the soul unwarily 
 leaves them open to the hot envenomed wind of temptation, a 
 sincere invocation of those heavenly guardians will preserve 
 the precious light from total extinction. 
 
 The transported eagle attentively heard the sublime 
 doctrines of Busunda , and requested him to complete the 
 lesson,"by defining the most excellent of natural forms, the 
 highest good, the chiei pain and pleasure, the greatest wicked- 
 ness, and the severest punishment. 
 
 ' I will describe them,* answered the crow, ' with precision. 
 In the three A^orlds, empyreal, terrestrial, and infernal, no 
 form excels the human ; supreme felicity on earth, consists 
 in genuine piety, and contempt of ivorldly advantages ; the 
 highest enjoyment is the conversation of the devout, and vir- 
 tuous ;Hhe keenest pain is inflicted by extreme poverty ; the 
 worst of sins is uncharitahleness, and the uncharitable, who 
 never fail to blaspheme the deities, and contemn the Vayds, 
 shall be punished in the profoundest hell ; while the despisers 
 of their spiritual guides, shall eternally live as frogs ; of the 
 Bra'^hmens as croios ; of the pious, as night-ravens ; of other ■ 
 men, as hats : such miseries are the fruit of ungoverned 
 passion !' 
 
 ' How should he,' continued Busunda , ' who loves all men, 
 and whom all men love, be torn by affliction ; or he be neces- 
 
AN EXTRACT FROM THE 107 
 
 sitous, who possesses the stone paras ? How can they who 
 hate their neighbours, be free from terror ; or how can the 
 vokiptuous be ultimately free from pain ? How can that coun- 
 try prosper, in which Bra^kmens are injuriously treated l or 
 how* shall that kingdom stand, in which justice is not adminis- 
 tered ? How can he fail of success, who acts with circumspec- 
 tion ? How shall they be tormented with gloomy apprehensions, 
 who despise not 'the virtuous? How shall he be rescued from 
 perdition, who seduces the wife of another ? or he live happily, 
 who mnrmurs at Providence 1 Who can be glorified without 
 merit ? and who can be dishonoured without blame ? How, 
 lastly, can sin dwell in him, who listen to the story, and pours 
 forth the praises of Ra'm ? No happiness can equal the pure 
 devotion of his adorers." 
 
[ THE following fragments were submitted to the perusul of a friend *, and are 
 nowjpublished at his recommendation, communicated to the Editor in the following 
 terms : 
 
 "The fragments submitted to my perusal, consist of translations of passages 
 in the V^das, and appear to be materials selected by Sir William Jones, for the 
 elucidation of a Dissert'^ltion ' On the Primitive Religion of the Hindus.' This Disserta- 
 tion was professedly intended, ' to remove the veil from the suppos ed mysteries of the 
 prim^al Indian Religi<^ '; and it is much to be regretted, that it was never complet- 
 ed, and that the fragments, which are extremely curious and interesting, connot be 
 published with that elucidation which they would have received from the pen of the 
 translator. I re commend, however, the publication of them, as well as of the follow- 
 ing extract." ] 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A DISSERTATION ON THE 
 PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 ■^^ ■^' * ^'^ * * * but that I may not seem to appro- 
 priate the merit of discoveries which others have previously 
 made, I think it necessary to say, that the original Gayatri, or 
 holiest verse in the Veda, has already been published, though 
 very incorrectly, by Fra Manuel da Assomcaon, a successful 
 missionary from Portugal, who may have received it, as his 
 countrymen assert, from a converted .Bri^^wa?! ; that the same 
 venerable text was seen in the hand of Mr. Wilkins, who no 
 doubt well understood it, by two pandits of my acquaintance, 
 and that a paraphrase of it in Persian may be found in the 
 curious work of Darashucuh, which deserves to be mentioned 
 very particularly. That amiable, but impolitic prince, who 
 sacrificed his throne, and his life, to a premature declaration of 
 his religious opinions, had employed six months, as he tells us 
 at Banaras, in translating, and explaining, fifty-one Upanishads, 
 or secrets of the old Indian scripture ; but he translated only 
 the verbal interpretation of his pandits, and blended the text 
 of the Veda, with different glosses, and even with the conver- 
 
 *Lord Teigumouth. » 
 
110 EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA. 
 
 « 
 
 s.ation, I believe, of his living Hindu expositors, who are naturally 
 so loquacious, that when they have began taking, they hardly 
 know how to close their lips. 
 
 Of this book I procured, with the assistance of Colonel Poller, 
 a complete copy, corrected by a learned Raja , named A%an- 
 daram, with whom the Colonel was very intimate : but though 
 sublime, and majestic, features of the original were discernible, 
 in parts, through folds of the Persian drapery ; yet the Sanscrit 
 names were so barbarously written, and the^ additions of the 
 translator has made the work so deformed, that I resolved to 
 postpone a regular perusal of it till I could compare it with the 
 Sanscrit orisfinal ************** 
 
 THE GAYATRI OR HOLIEST VERSE OF 
 THE J^ ED AS. 
 
 LET us adore the supremacy of that divine sun f the 
 
 godhead J who illuminates all, who '^recreates all, from whom 
 
 all proceed, to whom all must-^^return, whom we invoke to 
 
 direct our understandings aright in our^ progress towards his 
 holy seat. 
 
 What the sun and light are to this visible world, that, 
 are the supreme good, and truth, to the intellectual and invi- 
 sible universe ; and, as our corporeal eyes have a distinct 
 perception of objects enlightened by t*he sun, thus our souls 
 acquire certain knowledge, by meditating on the light of truth, 
 which emanates from the Being of beings : that is the light 
 by which alone our minds can be directed in the [path to 
 beatitude. • . 
 
 •jl opposed to the visible luminary. 
 , X Bharrjas, a word consisting of three consonants, derived from hhd to shine ; ram, 
 to delight ; yam, to move. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA. Ill 
 
 apanipad6 javano grihita, 
 pasyatyachacshah sa s'rino tyacarnah : 
 sa vetti vedyam na che tasya Yettd * . 
 
 tamahuragryam perusfiam maharitam. 
 Without hand or foot he runs rapidly, and grasps firmly ; 
 without eyes he sees, without ears he hears all ; he knows 
 whatever can be known, but there is none who knows him : 
 Him the wise calPthe great, supreme, pervading spirit. 
 Of this text, and a few others, Ka dha cant has given a paraphrase: 
 "Perfect truth ; perfect happiness ; without equal ; immortal ; 
 absolute unity ; whom neither speech can describe, nor mind 
 comprehend ; all-pervading ; all-transcending ; delighted with his 
 own boundless intelligence, not limited by space, or time ; 
 without feet, moving swiftly ; without hands, grasping all worlds ; 
 without eyes, all-surveying ; without ears, all-hearing ; without 
 an intelligent guide, understanding all ; without cause, the first 
 of all causes ; all-ruling ; all-powerfid ; the creator, preserver, 
 transformer, of all things; such is the Great One: tiiis the 
 Vedas declare." 
 
 1. "WHAT relish can there be for enjoyments in this unso^md 
 body, filled with bad odours, composed of bones, skin, tendons, 
 membranes, muscles, blood, saliva, tears, ordure, and urine, bile 
 and mucus ? 
 
 2 . What relish can there be for enjoyment in this body ; 
 assailed by desire and Avrath, by aA^arice and illusion, fear and 
 sorrow, envy and hate, by absence from those whom we love, 
 and by union with those whom we dislike, by hunger and thirst, 
 by disease and emaciation, by growth and decline, by old age 
 and death ? 
 
 3. • Surely we see this universe tending to deca}^, even as 
 these biting gnats and other insects ; even as the grass of the 
 field, and the trees of the foresii, which spring up and then perish. 
 
 * Instead of Vettd some copies of the text have chettd for chetayitd, or director of 
 the mind, ToT7fMovtxev. 
 
112 EXTRACTS FROM THE TEDA. 
 
 4. But what are they ? Others, far greater, have been archers 
 mighty in battle, and some have been kings of the whole earth. 
 
 . 5. SUDHUMNA, BnURIDHUMNA, InDRADHUMNA, CuVALAYA'sWA, 
 
 Yanvana'swa, Avadhtaswa, ASwapati, Sasabindu, Havisehan- 
 DRA, Barishsha, Nahusha, Suryati, Yatati, Vicrava, Acshl\.ya- 
 sena, Priyavrata, and the rest. 
 
 6. Marutta likewise, and Bharata, who enjoyed all cor- 
 poreal delights, yet left their boundless prosperity, and passed 
 from this world to the next. 
 
 7. But what are they ? Others yet greater, Gandawas, 
 Asuras, Bacshasaf, companies of spirits, Pisaclias, Uragas, and 
 Gra has, have we seen been destroyed. 
 
 8. But what are they ? Others, greater still, have been 
 changed ; vast rivers dried ; mountains torn up ; the pole itself 
 moved from its place ; the cords of the stars rent asunder ; the 
 whole earth itself deluged with water ; even the safes or angels 
 hurled from their stations. 
 
 9. In such a world, then, what relish can there be for 
 enjoyment ? Thoi^i alone art able to raise up. 
 
 I am in this world like a frog in a dry well : Thou only, 
 Lord, art mj refuge : thou only art my refuge. 
 
 1. MAY that soul of mine which mounts aloft in my 
 waking hours, as an ethereal spark, and which, even in my 
 slumber, has alike ascent, soaring to a great distance, as an 
 emanation from the light of lights, be united by devout 
 meditation with the ^Spirit supremely blest, and supremely 
 
 intelligent ! 
 
 2. May that soul of mine, by an agent, similar to which * 
 the low-born perform their menial works, and the wise, deeply 
 versed in sciences, duly solemnize their sacrificial rite ; that soul, 
 which was itself the primeval oblation placed within all 
 creatures, be united by devout meditation with the Spirit 
 supremely blest, and supremely intelligent ! 
 
EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA. 113 
 
 3. May that soul of mine, which is a ray of perfect wisdom, 
 pure intellect and permanent existence, which is the 
 unextinguishable light fixed within created bodies, without 
 which no good act is performed, be united by devout meditation 
 with the Spirit supremely blest, and supremely intelligent ! 
 
 4. May that soul of mine, in which, as an immortal essence, 
 may be comprised whatever has past, is present, or will be 
 hereafter ; by which the sacrifice, where seven ministers 
 officiate, is prop vly solemnized ; be united by devout meditation 
 with the Spirit supremely blest, and supremely intelligent ! 
 
 5. May that soul of mine, into which are inserted, like the 
 spokes of a wheel in the axle of a car, the holy texts of the 
 Rigveda, the Sdman, end the Yajiish ; into which is interwoven 
 all that belongs to created forms, be united by devout 
 meditation with the Spirit supremely blest, and supremely 
 intelligent ! 
 
 6. May that soul of mine, which, distributed in other bodies, 
 guides mankind, as a skilful charioteer guides his rapid horses 
 with reins ; that soul which is fixed in my breast, exempt from 
 old age, and extremely swift in its course, be united, by divine 
 meditation, with the Spirit supremely blest, and supremely 
 intellige nt ! 
 
 Veda, and 1st Article of our Church. 
 
 " There is one living and true God, everlasting, without 
 body, parts, or passion, of infinite power, wisdom, and 
 goodness ; the maker and preserver of all things, both 
 visible. &c. &c." 
 
114 EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA. 
 
 I^SA^VA^S Y A M; 
 
 OR, 
 
 ^.Y UPANISHAD FROM THE YAJUR VEDA. 
 
 .4 
 
 1. BY one Supreme Ruler is this universe pervaded ; even 
 every world in the whole circle of nature. Enjoy pure delight, 
 O man ! by abandoning all thoughts of this perishable world ; 
 and covet not the ^.vealth of a-ny creature existing. 
 
 2. He who, in this life, continually performs his religious 
 duties, may desire to live a hundred years f but even to the end 
 of that period thou shouldst have no other occupation here below. 
 
 3. To those regions, where evil spirits dwell, and which 
 
 utter darkness involves, will such men surely go after death 
 as destroy tJie pur it ^j' of their own souls. 
 
 4. 'i here is one supreme Spirit, which nothing can shake, 
 more rwift than the thought of man. That primeval Mover, even 
 divine intelligences cannot reach : that Spirit, though unmoved, 
 infinitely transcends others, how rapid soever their course. 
 
 5. That supreme Spirit moves at pleasure, but in itself is 
 immoveable ; it is di,t,tant from us, yet very near us ; it pervades 
 this whole system of worlds, yet is infinitely beyond it. 
 
 .6.. The man who considers all beings as existing even in 
 the ■ supreme spirit, and the supreme spirit as pervading all 
 beings, henceforth views no creature with contempt. 
 
 7. In him who knows that all spiritual beings are the same 
 in I'ii'id with the supreme spirit, what room can there he fo'^' 
 delusion of mind, or what room for sorrow when he reflects on 
 the identity of spirit ? 
 
 .8. The pure enlightened soul assumes a luminous form with 
 no gross body, with no perforation, with no veins, or tendons^ 
 
EXTRACTS FKOM THE VEDA. 115 
 
 9 
 
 unblemished, untainted by sin, itself heing a ray from the infi- 
 nite, sjjirity which knows the past and the future, v.-hich per- 
 vades ail, which exist^id with no cause but itself, which created 
 all things as they are in ages vt^y remote. 
 
 ^. They who are ignorantly devoted to the mere ceremonies 
 of religion are fallen into thick darkness, but thjy surely have 
 a thicker gloom around them who are solely attached to specu- 
 lative science. -» 
 
 10. A distinct reward, they say, is reserved for ceremonies, 
 and a distinct reward, they s?«y, for divine knowledge ; adding, 
 " This we have heard from saiies who uoclared it to us." 
 
 11. He alone is acquainted vvlth the no-ture of ceremonies, 
 and with that of spiCuLitive s jlence, vWio is acquainted v/ith 
 both at once : by religious ceremonies he passes the gulph of 
 death, and by divine knowledge he attains immortality. 
 
 12. They who adore only the appearances and forms of the 
 deity are fallen into thick darkness, but they surely have a 
 thicker gloom around them who are solely devoted to the abs- 
 tract essence of the divine essence. 
 
 13. A distinct reward, they say, is obtained by adoring the 
 forms and attributes, and a distinct reward, they say, by adoring 
 the abstract essence ; adding : '' This we have heard from sages 
 who declare it to us." 
 
 14 . He only knows the forms and the essence of the deity 
 who adores both at once ; by adoring the appearances of the 
 deity, he passes the gulph of death, and by adoring his abstract 
 essence he attains immortality. 
 
 15. Unveil, Thou who givest sustenance to the world, 
 
 , that face of the true . sun, which is now hidden by a vase of 
 golden light ! so that we may see the tiuth, and know our 
 whole duty ! 
 
 16. Thou Avho givest sustenance to the world, thou sole 
 mover of all, thou who restrainost sinners, who pervadest yon 
 great luminary, who appearest as the Son of the Creator ; hide 
 thy dazzling beams, and expand thy spiritual bri2,htuo3s, i?hat 
 I may view thy most auspicious, most glorious, real form. 
 
116 EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA. 
 
 i 
 
 ^*0M, Remember me, divine spirit !" 
 
 "OM, Remember my deeds." 
 
 17. That all-pervading spirit, that spirit which gives light 
 to the visible sun, even the same in kind am I, though infinitelij 
 distant in degree. Let my soul return to the immortal spirit of 
 God, and then let my body, which ends in ashes, return to dust ! 
 
 1 8. spirit, who pervadest fire, lead us in a straight path to 
 the riches of beatitude ! Thou, God, possessest all the treasures 
 of knowledge : remove each foul taint from 01^* souls ; we con- 
 tinually approach thee with the highest praise, and the most 
 fervid adoration. 
 
 FROM THE YAJURVEDA. 
 
 1. AS a tree, the lord of the forest, even so, without fiction, 
 is man : his hairs are as leaves ; his skin, as exterior bark. 
 
 2. Through the skin flows blood ; through the rind, sap : 
 from a wounded man, therefore, blood gushes, as the vegetable 
 fluid from a tree tliat is cut. 
 
 3. His muscles are as interwoven fibres ; the membrane round 
 his bones as interior bark, which is closely fixed : his bones are 
 as the hard pieces of wood within : their marrow is composed 
 of pith. 
 
 4. Since the tree, when felled, springs again, still fresher, 
 from the root, from what root springs mortal man when felled 
 by the hand of death ? 
 
 5. Say not, he springs from seed : seed surely comes from 
 the livincr. A tree, no doubt, rises from, seed, and after death 
 
 has a visible renewal. 
 
 6. But a tree which they have plucked up by the root, flour- 
 ishes individually no more. From what, root then springs mortal 
 man when felled by the hand of deatli \ 
 
 y. Say not he was born before ; he is born : who can mcke 
 liim 'spring again to birth ? 
 
EXTRACTS FROM THE VEDA, ll7 
 
 8. God, who is perfect wisdom, perfect happiness, He is the 
 
 final refufije of the man, who has liberally bestowd his wealth, 
 
 who has been firm in virtue, who knows and adores that Great One. 
 
 A HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 
 
 NIGHT approaches illumined with stars and planets, and 
 looking on all sides with numberless eyes, overpowers all meaner 
 lights. The im'kiortal goddess pervades the firmament covering 
 the low valleys and shrubs and the lofty mountains and trees, but 
 soon she disturbs the gloom with celestial effulgence. Advancing 
 w^ith brightness, at length she recalls her sister Morning ; and 
 the nightly shade gradually melts away. 
 
 May she, at this time, be propitious 1 She, in whose early 
 watch, we maj calmly recline in our mansion, as birds repose 
 on the tree. 
 
 Mankind now sleep in their town; now herds and flock ^ 
 peacefully slumber, and winged creatures, even swift falcons and 
 vultures. 
 
 Night, avert from us the she-wolf and the wolf; and oh ! 
 suffer us to pass thee in soothing rest ! 
 
 Morn, remove, in due time, this black, yet visible, 
 overwhelming darkness which at present infolds me, as thou 
 enablest me to remove the cloud of their debts. 
 
 Daughter of heaven, I approach thee with praise, as the 
 cow approaches her milker ; accept, Night, not the hymn only, 
 but the oblation of thy suppliant, who prays that his foes may 
 be subdued. 
 
The following Fragment is a TranslaUon from a Sanscrit Work, 
 
 entitled, 
 THE IGNORANT INSTRUCTED. 
 
 1. EiESTKAIN, ignorant man, tliy desire of wealth, and 
 become a hater of ib in body, understandiu'j, andf mind : let the 
 riches thou possessest be acquired by thy own good actions, 
 with those gratify thy souh 
 
 2. The boy so long delights in his play, the youth so long 
 pursues his beloved, the old so long brood over melancholy 
 thoughts, that no man meditates on the supreme being. ' 
 
 3. Who is thy wife, and who thy son ? How^ great and 
 wonderful is this world : ^vhose than art, and whence thou 
 comcfet ? Meditiite on this, my brother, and again on this. 
 
 4. B| not ])rond of wealth and attendants, and youth ; 
 since time destroys all of thorn in the twinkling of an eye : 
 check th}' attachment to ail these illusions, like Maja ; fix thy 
 heart on the foot of Brahmcl, and thou wilt soon know him. 
 
 5. As a drop of watci- moves on the ' af of the lotus ; thus, 
 or more slippery, is human li'I'j : the company of the virtaou.^ 
 endures here but fur a moment; th.it is the vehicle to bear thee 
 over land and ocean. 
 
 6. To dwell in the mansion of Gods at the foot of a tree ; 
 to have the ground for a bed, and a hide for vesture ; to re- 
 nounce all ties of family or connections ; who would not receive 
 delight from this devout abhorrence of Ihe world. 
 
 '/. Set not thy affections on foe, or friend ; on a son, or a 
 relation ; in Avar, or in peace ; bear an equal mind towards all ; 
 if thou de.-urest it, thou wilt soon be like Vishnu. 
 
 8. Day and night, evening aiid morn, winter and sprjiig, 
 depart and return ! Time sports, age passes on, desire and ihe 
 wind continue unrestrained. 
 
FKAGMENT. 119 
 
 o 
 
 9. When the body is tottericg, the head grey, and the 
 mouth toothless ; when the smooth stick trembles in the hand, 
 which it supports, yet the vessel of covetousness remains 
 unemptied. 
 
 10. So soon born, so soon dead ! so long lying in thy 
 mother's womb ! so o-reat crimes are committed in the world ! 
 How then, man, canst thou live here below with com- 
 placency ? 
 
 1 1 . There ari^ eight original mountains, and seven seas — Brah- 
 ma, Inclra, the Sun, ajid Kudra. — These are permanent, not thou, 
 not I, not this, or that people : what, therefore, should occasion 
 our sorrow ? 
 
 12. In thee, in me, in every ctlier, Vislcuu resides : in vain 
 art thou angry with me, not bearing m}'- approach : this is per- 
 fectly true, all must be esteemed equal ; be not, therefore, proud 
 of a magnificent palace. 
 
 This is the instruction of learners, delivered in twelve 
 measures : wh-it more can be done with those, whom this work 
 doth fill with devotion ? 
 
 Thus ends the book, w^^rnQdi Mohadmudgara, or the Ignorant 
 Instructed, (properly the Mallet of the Ignorant), composed by 
 the holy, devout, and prosperous Sancar Acharya. 
 
 / 
 
THE SEASONS; 
 
 ( 
 
 (A DESCRIPTIVE POEM FROM THE ORIGINAL SANSCRIT.) 
 
 BY CA^LTDaI^. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 [ THIS book is the first ever printed in Sa,nizrit ; and it ia by tlie press alone, 
 that the ancient iherature oi India can long be preserved : a learner of that most 
 interesti ng language who had carefully perused one of the popular grammars, could 
 hardly begin his coarse of study with an easier or more elegant work, than the 
 Eitusanhura, or Assein'dage of Sca>ms. Every line composed by Ca'lida's ia 
 exquisitely polished ; and every couplet in the poem exhibits an Irulian landscape, 
 always beautiful, sometimes highly coloured, but never beyond nature : four copies 
 of it have been diligently coUat^id ; and where they difiered, the clearest and most 
 natural reading has constantly had the preference.] 
 
 W. J. 
 
THE 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 Among eleven or 'twelve Persian Poems on the story of 
 Laili and Majnu iY, that of Ha tifi seems universally esteemed 
 the simplest and most pathetic. The tale itself is extremely 
 simple ; and the more afFecting, because it is true ; for Kais, 
 who became /ran^/c from disappointed love, and tlience had the 
 surname of Mdjnnn, was a most accomplished and amiable youth, 
 the only son of an Arabian chieftain in the first age of the 
 Mohammedan empire : fra'^ments of his bsautifal poetry are 
 still repeated with rapture by the Arabs of Ilejaz; and the best 
 works of the Persians aljound in allusions to his unfortunate 
 passion. Laili , or Laila, as her name is pronounced in Arabia, 
 was the daughter of a neighbouring chief, and was also eminent- 
 ly accomplished ; yet she had no transcendents beauty, it seems, 
 in any eyes but those of her lover : Sadi , who represents her 
 with a swarthy complexion and of low stature, tells a long, but at 
 agreeable, story on the same subject, which the Maulavl of Rum 
 has comprized in two couplets — "T\\q Khali fah said to Lail/, ctr^ 
 thou the damsel, for luhom the lost Majxu .>t is become a wander- 
 er in the desert ? Thou*sunpassest not other girls in beauty. She 
 said : Be silent; for thou art not Majnu n." 
 
 For the short) account of our Poet exhibited in the Persian 
 preface, we are obliged to the kindness of Ali^Ibra hiIvi Kha'n, 
 one of the best bred, most learned, and most virtuous Miisel- 
 mOyAs in the British territories. Abdullah, surnamed Ha tifi "^ 
 wno died in the year 1520 of our era, was a nephew, we find, of, 
 Nu &GDDL N, usually called Ja^mi^ from the village of Jdm in 
 P 
 
122 PREFACK. 
 
 Khora san, with whom he lived on more amicable terms, than 
 could naturally have been expected between rival poets ; and, if 
 he was inferior to his uncle in learning or in art, he certainly sur- 
 passed him in genius. His principal ambition was to enter the 
 lists with NizA. Mi, by composing five poems on the same or si- 
 milar subjects with the Khamsnh of that illustrious author ; and 
 how far he succeeded in his competition, every reader must de- 
 cide for himself : my own opinion is, that he has not even ap- 
 proached the splendour and sublimity of his mastpsr's diction, but 
 that he has excelled him in tenderness and simplicity ; and, most 
 probably, Niza'mi^ valued himself solely on his rich and elevated 
 composition, whilst Ha tifi aimed only at sweetness and pathos, 
 each attaining the summit of excellence in the style which he 
 professed. The fate of the two poets has been very different ; 
 for, while the five poems of Niza Mi'have a place in most Asia- 
 tic libraries and in general are beautifully copied, those of Ha - 
 tifi' are extremely scarce and negligently transcribed : \\\^ Haft 
 Paicar, or the Seven Images, is barely named by D'Herbelot, 
 who mentions also his Zafar Na laah, an Heroic Poetu on the 
 actions of Taimu^r, which was designed to emulate that of Niza - 
 Mi^on the victories of Alexander ; but I have never been able 
 to procure any of his works except his Laili Majnu n, the scar- 
 city of which was my chief inducement for publishing it. The 
 reader must not expect a complete edition of the poem, which 
 I have neither materials nor leisure to exhibit, but merely an 
 impression of my manuscript, which unhappily is far from being 
 correct. A Muselma^n of high rank, who first named the work 
 to me, promised to send me in Bengal a well-collated copy of 
 it ; but he forgot his promise ; and the imperfection of this 
 edition must partly be ascribed to his forgetfuhiess ; partly to 
 my own haste, inadvertence, or ignorance. Since the book has 
 been printed, I have read it four or five times with great atten- 
 tion ; and, having procured two other manuscripts, when the 
 last sheet was in the press, I perused them also with as much 
 attention as they deserved, but with very trifling advantage ; 
 I then formed a table of corrections, while two learned natives 
 
PREFACE. 123 
 
 o 
 
 were severally engaged in the same labour ; but, finding their 
 tables to differ considerably from each other, I have reduced 
 them to a short compass by omitting every doubtful emenda- 
 tion, and every grammatical error, by which no Persian scholar 
 coidd be misled. In many places the common orthographical 
 marks are omitted (as they are, indeed, in the best manuscripts), 
 and in some places they are added, where the sense or the metre 
 necessarily requites their omission : between some few words 
 the copulative is erroneously inserted, and between others it is 
 inaccurately omitted, having probably dropped out in the press- 
 work : lastly, some couplets are evidently transposed, especially 
 in the dialogue between Majxu n and Laili 's mother, where I 
 suspected on the first perusal of it, that near thirty distichs were 
 out of their place ; but I had not tiie courage to depart from the 
 authority of my manuscript in a most pathetic episode, where 
 it might have been the poet's design to break the usual con- 
 nexion of ideas in minds distracted with anguish ; as the great 
 Italian composers often violate every rule of harmony in ex- 
 pressing tumultuous passions. On the whole, the book is by 
 no means perfect ; but, since it is far more correct than any 
 Persian or Arabic book of the same length, that I ever perused, 
 I am fully convinced that it will afford the reader as much de- 
 light, as I have myself received, and shall continue to receive, 
 from it. 
 
 The best guide in amending all poetical works is an accurate 
 knowledge of the measures, in which they are composed ; yet 
 a want of that knowledge in editors of Greek and Ara oian 
 poems, has been the occasion of so many mistakes, that s) col- 
 lection of them would fill a volume : in Persian few poems have 
 been printed ; but, if Gentius had only Seen able to distin- • 
 guish prose from verse, as it is manifest that he was not able, 
 he would have done more justice to the beautiful Gulista n, 
 which he had the merit of selecting for publication. The mea- 
 surfe of the poem before us, which has enabled me to correct a 
 number of lines in it, is exactly in this form : '" 
 
 Lex 6mnihu$ inipera re debet, 
 
124 PREFACE. 
 
 f 
 
 with a strong accent on the second, seventh, and tenth syllables ; 
 and it is very remarkable, that almost every couplet in that 
 measure may be. transposed, by an easy change of the accent, 
 into common English verse : thus Ha tifi says, 
 
 an t'^orfah sahl kadi gulenddm 
 az hais rohicd s ahru clrdm, 
 
 budi hiroJchi niciii/i u shdd, 
 
 vaz Jchivdh u khoresh naydmadl ydd, ' 
 
 ishk dmad u der du sinah jd cai d, 
 khodr d hidu ydr dshnd card, 
 
 hdz dmadl u hihem nishasti, 
 
 vaz goft u shenld leh nabasti, 
 
 isJidn ghemi dil hicas nag of tend, 
 
 rdzi del az in u dn najioftend. 
 These five distichs may be thus translated in the measure 
 of the original : 
 
 "With cheeks, where eternal pdradise blo6m'd. 
 
 Sweet Lain the soul of Kals had consdm'd ; 
 
 Transported her heavenly graces he vi^w'd, 
 
 Of slumber no more he thought, nor of fodd : 
 
 Love rais'd in their glowing bosoms his throne, 
 
 Adopting the chosen pair as his own. 
 
 Together on flow'ry seats they repos'd ; 
 
 Their lips not one idle moment v/ere clds*d : 
 
 To mortals they gave no hint of their smart ; 
 
 Love only the secret drew from each heart. 
 And a bare transposition of the accents gives us five English 
 couplets in the form, which some call heroic, and others, 
 elegiac : 
 
 With cheMvS, where paradise eternal bloom'd, 
 
 Sweet LnUi had the soul of Kats consum*d ; 
 
 Jler heav'nly jrraces he transported viev^r'd ; 
 
 No more he thought of slumber or of food. 
 
 Love in their glowing bosoms rais'd his throne, \ 
 
 The chosen pair adopting as his own. ^ 
 
PREFACE. 125 
 
 On flow'ry seats together they repos'd ; 
 
 Their lips one idle moment were not clos'd ; 
 
 No hint they gave to mortals of their smart ; , 
 
 Love only drew the secret from each heart. 
 
 ^ evertheless, if the whole poem should ever be translated 
 into English (by me it certainly never will), I would recom- 
 mend a version in modulated, but unaffected, prose in prefer- 
 ence to rhymed couplets ; and, though not a single image or 
 thought should i)e added by the translator, yet it would be 
 allowable to omit several conceits, Avhich would appear unbe- 
 coming in an European dress ; for the poem, with all its beau- 
 ties, has conceits in it, like the black spots on some very beauti- 
 ful flowers ; but they are neither so numerous nor so unpleas- 
 ing, as those in the poem of VfiNus'and A.donis, and we cannot 
 with justice show less indulgence to a poet of Inln, than we 
 all show to our immortal countryman, Shakspeare. 
 
 I wish I could conceal the principal object of this publica- 
 tion, without impeding or delaying the object itself ; but, since 
 I am conscious, that what I am going to add has the appear- 
 ance only of ostentation, and that my purpose cannot be ans- 
 wered, unless it be speedily and generally known, I think it 
 necessary to declare, that the property of the whole impression 
 belongs from this moment to the attorney for the poor in the 
 Supreme Court, in trust for the miserable persons under execu- 
 tion for debt in the prison of Calcutta : should all the copies be 
 sold, there will be near twelve thousand Sicca Eupees in the 
 hands of the trustee, who will immediately apply them, w^th- 
 , out any distinction of religion or country, to the effectual relief, 
 as far as they will extend, of such prisoners as have heen long- 
 est confined, and are not relievable by the rules of the Court. 
 This assistance, I fear, vv.ill set at liberty but few of the unhappy 
 men, who now suffer the worst of human misfortunes ; but it is 
 possible, that the liberality of the public may, in some mode 
 or another, extend itself to those who remain in prison ; for, 
 even if the legislature should ultimately relieve them, yeV 
 
126 PREFACE. 
 
 multitudes of them will perish, and all must wish to perish, 
 before any relief can arrive from Europe. 
 
 i The incorrectness of modern Arabian and Persian books 
 is truiy deplorable : nothing i;an preserve them in any degree 
 of accuracy but the art of printing ; and, if Asiatic literature 
 should ever be general, it must diffuse itself, as Greelc learning 
 was diffused in Italy after the taking of Constantinople, by mere 
 impressions of the best manuscripts without versions or com- 
 ments, which future scholars would add at their leisure to 
 future editions ; but no printer could engage in so expensive 
 a business, without the patronage and the purse of monarchs 
 or states or societies of wealthy individuals, or at least without 
 a large public subscription : there are printers in Bengal, 
 who, if they were duly encouraged, would give us editions of 
 Ha Fiz and Sadi, or, perhaps, of Niza ini'and Firdausi^; and 
 there ate indigent natives of eminent learning, who would 
 gladly correct the press for a small monthly salary. I shall 
 ever be ready to promote such undertakings as a subscriber, 
 but shall never more appear as an editor or a translator of any 
 Persian book whatever. 
 
 W. Jones. 
 
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