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,
Seem'd 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 water's clear—
— Alas! he dreamt not that fate was near.
His mother look'd from her tent the while
O'er heaven and earth with a quiet smile:
She, on her way unto Mecca's fane,*[1]
Had stay'd the course of her pilgrim train,
Calmly to linger a few brief hours,
In the Brahmin City's glorious bowers;
For the pomp of the forest—the wave's bright fall,
The red gold of sunset—she loved them all.
2.
The moon rose clear in the splendour given
To the deep blue night of an Indian heaven,
The boy from the high-arch'd woods came back—
—Oh! what had he met on 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 soil'd and torn,
And a gloom on the lids of his darken'd eye,
And a gash on his bosom—he came to die!
He look'd 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 linger'd to breathe the tale,
Murmuring faintly of wrong and scorn,
And wounds from the children of Brahma borne:
This was the doom for a Moslem found,
With 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 shriek'd not then, nor shook;
Breathless she knelt in her son's young blood,
Rending her mantle to staunch its flood,
But it rush'd 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,
Clasp'd to our bosoms its mortal mould,
- ↑ * This pilgrimage was undertaken from the interior parts of Hindostan.
