Page:Echoes from East and West.pdf/27

In grief he cried: "O fallen friends, on you the jackals feed!
They grin and grapple o'er your hearts and make your bodies bleed!

"The vultures pounce upon your flesh—I cannot bear it more!
The war-dogs and the war-hawks, too, will they thus suck your gore?"

There, in the midst of friends laid low, he found Virbahu dead;
He lookt but once, then shut his eyes, and, broken-hearted, said:

"The bed whereon, my darling son, Virbahu, thou hast lain,
Is glorious; for, in fighting for thy country thou wast slain.

"Thy bed is glorious: yet my heart doth not for glory care:
What booteth glory unto me, if thou art lost for e'er?

"This world, O Fate, is but the field of all thy sports below;
Why art thou pleased with having seen a mortal suffer woe?"

So saying, Ravan in his woe his eyes to seaward cast,
Beheld the bridge by Rama built, and slowly spake at last:

"O Sea! how fine a necklace thou on thy fine neck dost wear!—
Yet fie! no necklace, 'tis a chain!—so rude dost thou appear?