| |
(From The Curse of Kehama)
MIDNIGHT, and yet no eye | |
| Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep! | |
| Behold her streets ablaze | |
| With light that seems to kindle the red sky, | |
| Her myriads swarming through the crowded ways! | 5 |
| Master and slave, old age and infancy, | |
| All, all abroad to gaze; | |
| House-top and balcony | |
| Clustered with women, who throw back their veils | |
| With unimpeded and insatiate sight | 10 |
| To view the funeral pomp which passes by, | |
| As if the mournful rite | |
| Were but to them a scene of joyance and delight. | |
| |
| Vainly, ye blessed twinklers of the night, | |
| Your feeble beams ye shed, | 15 |
| Quenched in the unnatural light which might outstare | |
| Even the broad eye of day; | |
| And thou from thy celestial way | |
| Pourest, O moon, an ineffectual ray! | |
| For lo! ten thousand torches flame and flare | 20 |
| Upon the midnight air, | |
| Blotting the lights of heaven | |
| With one portentous glare. | |
| Behold the fragrant smoke in many a fold | |
| Ascending, floats along the fiery sky, | 25 |
| And hangeth visible on high, | |
| A dark and waving canopy. | |
| |
| Hark! ’t is the funeral trumpet’s breath! | |
| ’T is the dirge of death! | |
| At once ten thousand drums begin, | 30 |
| With one long thunder-peal the ear assailing; | |
| Ten thousand voices then join in, | |
| And with one deep and general din | |
| Pour their wild wailing. | |
| The song of praise is drowned | 35 |
| Amid the deafening sound; | |
| You hear no more the trumpet’s tone, | |
| You hear no more the mourner’s moan, | |
| Though the trumpet’s breath and the dirge of death | |
| Swell with commingled force the funeral yell. | 40 |
| But rising over all in one acclaim | |
| Is heard the echoed and re-echoed name, | |
| From all that countless rout; | |
| Arvalan! Arvalan! | |
| Arvalan! Arvalan! | 45 |
| Ten times ten thousand voices in one shout | |
| Call Arvalan! The overpowering sound | |
| From house to house repeated rings about, | |
| From tower to tower rolls round. | |
| |
| The death-procession moves along; | 50 |
| Their bald heads shining to the torches’ ray, | |
| The Brahmins lead the way, | |
| Chanting the funeral song. | |
| And now at once they shout, | |
| Arvalan! Arvalan! | 55 |
| With quick rebound of sound, | |
| All in accordant cry, | |
| Arvalan! Arvalan! | |
| The universal multitude reply. | |
| In vain ye thunder on his ear the name; | 60 |
| Would ye awake the dead? | |
| Borne upright in his palankeen, | |
| There Arvalan is seen! | |
| A glow is on his face,—a lively red; | |
| It is the crimson canopy | 65 |
| Which o’er his cheek a reddening shade hath shed; | |
| He moves,—he nods his head,— | |
| But the motion comes from the bearers’ tread, | |
| As the body, borne aloft in state, | |
| Sways with the impulse of its own dead weight. | 70 |
| |
| Close following his dead son, Kehama came, | |
| Nor joining in the ritual song, | |
| Nor calling the dear name; | |
| With head deprest and funeral vest, | |
| And arms enfolded on his breast, | 75 |
| Silent, and lost in thought he moves along. | |
| King of the world, his slaves unenvying now | |
| Behold their wretched Lord; rejoiced they see | |
| The mighty Rajah’s misery; | |
| That Nature in his pride hath dealt the blow, | 80 |
| And taught the Master of Mankind to know | |
| Even he himself is man, and not exempt from woe. | |
| |
| O sight of grief! the wives of Arvalan, | |
| Young Azla, young Nealliny, are seen! | |
| Their widow-robes of white, | 85 |
| With gold and jewels bright, | |
| Each like an Eastern queen. | |
| Woe! woe! around their palankeen, | |
| As on a bridal day, | |
| With symphony and dance and song, | 90 |
| Their kindred and their friends come on. | |
| The dance of sacrifice! the funeral song! | |
| And next the victim slaves in long array | |
| Richly bedight to grace the fatal day, | |
| Move onward to their death; | 95 |
| The clarions’ stirring breath | |
| Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold, | |
| And swells the woven gold, | |
| That on the agitated air | |
| Flutters and glitters to the torch’s glare. | 100 |
| |
| A man and maid of aspect wan and wild, | |
| Then, side by side, by bowmen guarded, came; | |
| O wretched father! O unhappy child! | |
| Them were all eyes of all the throng exploring,— | |
| Is this the daring man | 105 |
| Who raised his fatal hand at Arvalan? | |
| Is this the wretch condemned to feel | |
| Kehama’s dreadful wrath? | |
| Then were all hearts of all the throng deploring; | |
| For not in that innumerable throng | 110 |
| Was one who loved the dead; for who could know | |
| What aggravated wrong | |
| Provoked the desperate blow! | |
| |
| Far, far behind, beyond all reach of sight, | |
| In ordered files the torches flow along, | 115 |
| One ever-lengthening line of gliding light; | |
| Far—far behind, | |
| Rolls on the undistinguishable clamor, | |
| Of horn and trump and tambour; | |
| Incessant as the roar | 120 |
| Of streams which down the wintry mountain pour, | |
| And louder than the dread commotion | |
| Of breakers on a rocky shore, | |
| When the winds rage over the waves, | |
| And ocean to the tempest raves. | 125 |
| |
| And now toward the bank they go, | |
| Where winding on their way below, | |
| Deep and strong the waters flow. | |
| Here doth the funeral pile appear, | |
| With myrrh and ambergris bestrewed, | 130 |
| And built of precious sandalwood. | |
| They cease their music and their outcry here, | |
| Gently they rest the bier; | |
| They wet the face of Arvalan, | |
| No sign of life the sprinkled drops excite; | 135 |
| They feel his breast,—no motion there; | |
| They feel his lips,—no breath; | |
| For not with feeble nor with erring hand | |
| The brave avenger dealt the blow of death. | |
| Then with a doubling peal and deeper blast | 140 |
| The tambours and the trumpets sound on high, | |
| And with a last and loudest cry | |
| They call on Arvalan. | |
| |
