Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/49

When wearied with long vigils kept,
I laid me down and thought I slept:
Methought there came a warrior-maid,
With blood-stain'd brow and sheathless blade;
Dark was her hue, as darkest cloud,
Which comes the Moon's fair face to shroud,
And 'round her waist a hideous zone
Of hands with charnal lightnings shone,
And long the garland which she wore
Of heads all bath'd in streaming gore:
How fierce the eyes by Death unseal'd.
And blasting gleams which they reveal'd.
I shudder'd—tho' I knew 'twas she,
The awful, ruthless Deity,
On whose dread altar like a flood,
There flows for aye her victim's blood!
I shudder'd—for, methought, she came,
With eyes of bright consuming flame,
'⁠Daughter,'—she said,—'farewell!—I go:
'⁠The time is come,—it must be so:
'⁠Leave thee and thine I will to-night,'—
Then vanish'd like a flash of light!

⁠Again I dreamt:—I saw a pyre
Blaze high with fiercely gleaming fire;
And one there came,—a warrior he,—
Tho' faint, yet bold,—undauntedly,
And plung'd—oh! God! into the flame
Which like a hungry monster rose,
And circl'd round his quivering frame,
A hideous curtain waving close!
I shriek'd—but, tell me why that start.
And paler brow and heaving heart?
Oh! tell me, hath my royal sire
Forgot his deep and ruthless ire,
And come and crush'd our foe-men dire?"