1.
Evening comes on: arising from the stream,
Homeward the tall flamingo wings his flight;
And where he sails athwart the setting beam,
His scarlet plumage glows with deeper light.
The watchman, at the wish’d approach of night,
Gladly forsakes the field, where he all day,
To scare the winged plunderers from their prey,
With shout and sling, on yonder clay-built height,
Hath borne the sultry ray.
Hark! at the Golden Palaces,
The Bramin strikes the hour.
For leagues and leagues around, the brazen sound
Rolls through the stillness of departing day,
Like thunder far away.
2.
Behold them wandering on their hopeless way,
Unknowing where they stray,
Yet sure where’er they stop to find no rest.
The evening gale is blowing,
It plays among the trees;
Like plumes upon a warrior’s crest,
They see yon cocoas tossing to the breeze.
Ladurlad views them with impatient mind,
Impatiently he hears
The gale of evening blowing,
The sound of waters flowing,
As if all sights and sounds combin’d
To mock his irremediable woe:
For not for him the blessed waters flow,
For not for him the gales of evening blow,
A fire is in his heart and brain,
And Nature hath no healing for his pain.
3.
The Moon is up, still pale
Amid the lingering light.
A cloud ascending in the eastern sky,
Sails slowly o’er the vale,
And darkens round and closes-in the night.
No hospitable house is nigh,
No traveller’s home the wanderers to invite.
Forlorn, and with long watching overworn,
The wretched father and the wretched child
Lie down amid the wild.
4.
Before them full in sight,
A white flag flapping to the winds of night,
Marks where the tyger seiz’d his human prey.
Far, far away with natural dread,
Shunning the perilous spot,
At other times abhorrent had they fled;
But now they heed it not.
Nothing they care; the boding death-flag now
In vain for them may gleam and flutter there.
Despair and agony in him,
Prevent all other thought;
And Kailyal hath no heart or sense for aught,
Save her dear father’s strange and miserable lot.
5.
There in the woodland shade,
Upon the lap of that unhappy maid,
His head Ladurlad laid,
And never word he spake;
Nor heav’d he one complaining sigh,
Nor groan’d he with his misery,
But silently for her dear sake
Endur’d the raging pain.
And now the moon was hid on high,
No stars were glimmering in the sky;
She could not see her father’s eye,
How red with burning agony.
Perhaps he may be cooler now;
She hoped, and long’d to touch his brow
With gentle hand, yet did not dare
To lay the painful pressure there.
Now forward from the tree she bent,
And anxiously her head she leant,
And listened to his breath.
Ladurlad’s breath was short and quick,
Yet regular it came,
And like the slumber of the sick,
In pantings still the same.
Oh if he sleeps! . . . her lips unclose,
Intently listening to the sound,
That equal sound so like repose.
Still quietly the sufferer lies,
Bearing his torment now with resolute will;
He neither moves, nor groans, nor sighs.
Doth satiate cruelty bestow
This little respite to his woe,
She thought, or are there Gods who look below!
6.
Perchance, thought Kailyal, willingly deceiv’d,
Our Marriataly hath his pain reliev’d,
And she hath bade the blessed sleep assuage
His agony, despite the Rajah’s rage.
That was a hope which fill’d her gushing eyes,
And made her heart in silent yearnings rise,
To bless the Power divine in thankfulness.
And yielding to that joyful thought her mind,
Backward the maid her aching head reclin’d
Against the tree, and to her father’s breath
In fear she hearken’d still with earnest ear.
But soon forgetful fits the effort broke:
In starts of recollection then she woke;
Till now benignant Nature overcame
The Virgin’s weary and exhausted frame,
Nor able more her painful watch to keep,
She clos’d her heavy lids, and sunk to sleep.
7.
Vain was her hope! he did not rest from pain,
The Curse was burning in his brain.
Alas! the innocent maiden thought he slept,
But Sleep the Rajah’s dread commandment kept,
Sleep knew Kehama’s Curse.
The dews of night fell round them now,
They never bath’d Ladurlad’s brow,
They knew Kehama’s Curse.
The night-wind is abroad,
Aloft it moves among the stirring trees.
He only heard the breeze, . . .
No healing aid to him it brought,
It play’d around his head and touch’d him not,
It knew Kehama’s Curse.
8.
Listening, Ladurlad lay in his despair,
If Kailyal slept, for wherefore should she share
Her father’s wretchedness which none could cure?
Better alone to suffer; he must bear
The burthen of his Curse, but why endure
The unavailing presence of her grief?
She too, apart from him, might find relief;
For dead the Rajah deem’d her, and as thus
Already she his dread revenge had fled,
So might she still escape and live secure.
9.
Gently he lifts his head,
And Kailyal does not feel;
Gently he rises up, . . . she slumbers still;
Gently he steals away with silent tread.
Anon she started, for she felt him gone;
She call’d, and through the stillness of the night,
His step was heard in flight.
Mistrustful for a moment of the sound,
She listens! till the step is heard no more;
But then she knows that he indeed is gone,
And with a thrilling shriek she rushes on.
The darkness and the wood impede her speed;
She lifts her voice again,
Ladurlad! . . . and again, alike in vain,
And with a louder cry
Straining its tone to hoarseness; . . . far away,
Selfish in misery,
He heard the call and faster did he fly.
10.
She leans against that tree whose jutting bough
Smote her so rudely. Her poor heart
How audibly it panted,
With sudden stop and start:
Her breath how short and painfully it came!
Hark! all is still around her, . . .
And the night so utterly dark,
She opened her eyes and she closed them,
And the blackness and blank were the same.
11.
’Twas like a dream of horror, and she stood
Half doubting whether all indeed were true.
A Tyger’s howl loud echoing through the wood,
Rous’d her; the dreadful sound she knew,
And turn’d instinctively to what she feared.
Far off the Tyger’s hungry howl was heard;
A nearer horror met the maiden’s view,
For right before her a dim form appear’d,
A human form in that black night,
Distinctly shaped by its own lurid light,
Such light as the sickly moon is seen to shed,
Through spell-rais’d fogs, a bloody baleful red.
12.
That Spectre fix’d his eyes upon her full;
The light which shone in their accursed orbs
Was like a light from Hell,
And it grew deeper, kindling with the view.
She could not turn her sight
From that infernal gaze, which like a spell
Bound her, and held her rooted to the ground.
It palsied every power;
Her limbs avail’d her not in that dread hour.
There was no moving thence,
Thought, memory, sense were gone:
She heard not now the Tyger’s nearer cry,
She thought not on her father now,
Her cold heart’s-blood ran back,
Her hand lay senseless on the bough it clasp’d,
Her feet were motionless;
Her fascinated eyes
Like the stone eye-balls of a statue fix’d,
Yet conscious of the sight that blasted them.
13.
The wind is abroad,
It opens the clouds;
Scattered before the gale,
They skurry through the sky,
And the darkness retiring rolls over the vale.
The stars in their beauty come forth on high,
And through the dark-blue night
The moon rides on triumphant, broad and bright.
Distinct and darkening in her light
Appears that Spectre foul.
The moon beam gives his face and form to sight,
The shape of man,
The living form and face of Arvalan!
His hands are spread to clasp her.
14.
But at that sight of dread the maid awoke;
As if a lightning-stroke
Had burst the spell of fear,
Away she broke all franticly and fled.
There stood a temple near beside the way,
An open fane of Pollear, gentle God,
To whom the travellers for protection pray.
With elephantine head and eye severe,
Here stood his image, such as when he seiz’d
And tore the rebel giant from the ground,
With mighty trunk wreath’d round
His impotent bulk, and on his tusks, on high
Impal’d upheld him between earth and sky.
15.
Thither the affrighted maiden sped her flight,
And she hath reach’d the place of sanctuary;
And now within the temple in despite,
Yea, even before the altar, in his sight,
Hath Arvalan with fleshly arm of might
Seiz’d her. That instant the insulted God
Caught him aloft, and from his sinuous grasp,
As if from some tort catapult let loose,
Over the forest hurl’d him all abroad.
16.
Overcome with dread,
She tarried not to see what heavenly power
Had saved her in that hour.
Breathless and faint she fled.
And now her foot struck on the knotted root
Of a broad manchineil, and there the maid
Fell senselessly beneath the deadly shade.
