Page:Echoes from East and West.pdf/38

“Nor do I see good in slaying all these kinsmen in the fight;
Krishna, I desire not vict’ry, nor a kingdom, nor delight.

“What shall we do with a kingdom, O Cow-owner, what shall we?
Of what good will be enjoyment? Of what good our living be?

“They for whom we seek a kingdom and enjoyment and delight,
They, resigning lives and riches, are assembled here to fight.

“Tutors, fathers, sons, grandfathers, uncles too, and sires-in-law,
Children’s children, spouses’ brothers, and the kinsmen whom I saw,

“These I will not slay, O Slayer of Madhu, tho’ myself be slain,—
Even if the three worlds’ sceptre—what of earth?—I chance to gain.

“If we slay the Dhartarashtras, what contentment may we win,
Folk-tormenter? Sin will seize us, if we slay these slaves of sin.

“So, to kill the Dhartarashtras, our own kinsfolk, is not right;—
How by killing these our kinsfolk may We, Madhav, gain delight?

“Even if they, with their reason blinded by rapacious ends,
Find no ill in race-destruction or oppression of their friends,