"What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it."-CHILDE HAROLD.
ROYAL in splendour went down the day,
On the plain where an Indian city lay,
With its crown of domes o'er the forest high,
Red, as if fused in the burning sky;
And its deep groves pierced by the rays which made
A bright stream's way through each long arcade,
Till the pillared vaults of the banyan stood
Like torch-lit aisles midst the solemn wood;
And the plantain glittered with leaves of gold,
As a tree midst the genii-gardens old,
And the cypress lifted a blazing spire,
And the stems of the cocoas were shafts of fire.
Many a white pagoda's gleam
Slept lovely round upon lake and stream,
Broken alone by the lotus flowers,
As they caught the glow of the sun's last hours,
Like rosy wine in their cups, and shed
Its glory forth on their crystal bed.
* From a tale in Forbes's Oriental Memoirs.
Many a graceful Hindoo maid,
With the water-vase, from the palmy shade
Came gliding light as the desert's roe,
Down marble steps to the tanks below;
And a cool sweet plashing was ever heard,
As the molten glass of the wave was stirred,
And a murmur thrilling the scented air,
Told where the Bramin bowed in prayer.
There wandered a noble Moslem boy,
Through that scene of beauty in breathless joy;
He gazed where the stately city rose,
Like a pageant of clouds, in its red repose;
He turned where birds through the gorgeous gloom
Of the woods went glancing on starry plume;
He tracked the brink of the shining lake,
By the tall canes feathered in tuft and brake :
Till the path he chose, in its mazes, wound
To the very heart of the holy ground.
And there lay the water, as if enshrined
In a rocky urn, from the sun and wind,
Bearing the hues of the grove on high,
Far down through its dark still purity.
The flood beyond, to the fiery west,
Spread out like a metal mirror's breast;
But that lone bay in its dimness deep,
Seemed made for the swimmer's joyous leap,
For the stag athirst from the noontide chase,
For all free things of the wild-wood's race.
Like a falcon's glance on the wide blue sky,
Was the kindling flash of the boy's glad eye;
Like a sea-bird's flight to the foaming wave,
From the shadowy bank was the bound he gave;
Dashing the spray-drops, cold and white,
O'er the glossy leaves in his young delight,
And bowing his locks to the waters clear-
Alas! he dreamt not that fate was near.
His mother looked from her tent the while,
O'er Heaven and earth with a quiet smile :
She, on her way unto Mecca's fane,
Had stayed the march of her pilgrim train,
Calmly to linger a few brief hours
In the Bramin city's glorious bowers;
For the pomp of the forest, the wave's bright fall, The red gold of sunset-she loved them all.
THE moon rose clear in the splendour given
To the deep-blue night of an Indian heaven;
The boy from the high arched woods came back-
Oh! what had he met in his lonely track?
The serpent's glance, through the long reeds bright?
The arrowy spring of the tiger's might?
No! yet as one by a conflict worn,
With his graceful hair all soiled and torn,
And a gloom on the lids of his darkened eye,
And a gash on his bosom-he came to die!
He looked for the face to his young heart sweet,
And found it, and sank at his mother's feet.
'Speak to me !-whence doth the swift blood run? What hath befallen thee, my child, my son?"
The mist of death on his brow lay pale,
But his voice just lingered to breathe the tale,
Murmuring faintly of wrongs and scorn,
And wounds from the children of Brahma borne.
This was the doom for a Moslem found
With a foot profane on their holy ground-
This was for sullying the pure waves, free
Unto them alone-'twas their god's decree.
A change came o'er his wandering look—
The mother shrieked not then nor shook :
Breathless she knelt in her son's young blood,
Rending her mantle to stanch its flood;
But it rushed like a river which none may stay,
Bearing a flower to the deep away.
That which our love to the earth would chain,
Fearfully striving with heaven in vain-
That which fades from us, while yet we hold,
Clasped to our bosoms, its mortal mould,
Was fleeting before her, afar and fast;
One moment-the soul from the face had passed!
Are there no words for that common woe?
Ask of the thousands its depth that know!
The boy had breathed, in his dreaming rest,
Like a low-voiced dove on her gentle breast;
He had stood, when she sorrowed, beside her knee,
Painfully stilling his quick heart's glee;
He had kissed from her cheek the widow's tears,
With the loving lip of his infant years:
He had smiled o'er her path like a bright spring day
Now in his blood on the earth he lay !
Murdered! Alas! and we love so well
In a world where anguish like this can dwell!
She bowed down mutely o'er her deadThey that stood round her watched in dread; They watched-she knew not they were by—
Her soul sat veiled in its agony.
On the silent lip she pressed no kiss
Too stern was the grasp of her pangs for this:
She shed no tear, as her face bent low
O'er the shining hair of the lifeless brow;
She looked but into the half-shut eye
With a gaze that found there no reply,
And, shrieking, mantled her head from sight,
And fell, struck down by her sorrow's might.
And what deep change, what work of power,
Was wrought on her secret soul that hour?
How rose the lonely one? She rose
Like a prophetess from dark repose !
And proudly flung from her face the veil,
And shook the hair from her forehead pale,
And midst her wondering handmaids stood,
With the sudden glance of a dauntless mood.
Ay, lifting up to the midnight sky
A brow in its regal passion high,
With a close and rigid grasp she pressed
The blood-stained robe to her heaving breast,
And said "Not yet, not yet I weep,
Not yet my spirit shall sink or sleep!
Not till yon city, in ruins rent,
Be piled for its victim's monument.
Cover his dust! bear it on before!
It shall visit those temple-gates once more."
And away in the train of the dead she turned, The strength of her step was the heart that burned: And the Bramin groves in the starlight smiled, As the mother passed with her slaughtered child.
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