Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey
Page 143
Let his hand rest upon her heart extended.
6.
Soon did his touch perceive, or fancy there,
The first faint motion of returning life.
He chafes her feet, and lays them bare
In the sun; and now again upon her breast
Lays his hot hand; and now her lips he prest,
For now the stronger throb of life he knew:
And her lips tremble too!
The breath comes palpably,
Her quivering lids unclose
Feebly and feebly fall,
Relapsing as it seem’d to dead repose.
7.
So in her father’s arms thus languidly,
While over her with earnest gaze he hung,
Silent and motionless she lay,
And painfully and slowly writh’d at fits,
At fits to short convulsive starts was stung.
Till when the struggle and strong agony
Had left her, quietly she lay repos’d:
Her eyes now resting on Ladurlad’s face,
Relapsing now, and now again unclos’d.
The look she fix’d upon his face, implies
Nor thought nor feeling; senselessly she lies,
Compos’d like one who sleeps with open eyes.
8.
Long he leant over her,
In silence and in fear.
Kailyal!... at length he cried in such a tone,
As a poor mother ventures who draws near,
With silent footstep, to her child’s sick bed.
My Father! cried the maid, and rais’d her head,
Awakening then to life and thought,... thou here?
For when his voice she heard,
The dreadful past recurr’d,
Which dimly, like a dream of pain,
Till now with troubled sense confus’d her brain.
9.
And hath he spar’d us then? she cried,
Half rising as she spake,
For hope and joy the sudden strength supplied;
In mercy hath he curb’d his cruel will,
That still thou livest? But as thus she said,
Impatient of that look of hope, her sire
Shook hastily his head;
Oh! he hath laid a Curse upon my life,
A clinging curse, quoth he;
Hath sent a fire into my heart and brain,
A burning fire, for ever there to be!
The winds of Heaven must never breathe on me;
The rains and dews must never fall on me;
Water must mock my thirst and shrink from me;
The common earth must yield no fruit to me;
Sleep, blessed Sleep! must never light on me;
And Death, who comes to all, must fly from me;
And never, never set Ladurlad free.
10.
This is a dream! exclaim’d the incredulous maid,
Yet in her voice the while a fear exprest,
Which in her larger eye was manifest.
This is a dream! she rose and laid her hand
Upon her father’s brow, to try the charm;
He could not bear the pressure there;... he shrunk,...
He warded off her arm,
As though it were an enemy’s blow, he smote
His daughter’s arm aside.
Her eye glanced down, his mantle she espied
And caught it up;... Oh misery! Kailyal cried,
He bore me from the river-depths, and yet
His garment is not wet!
IV. THE DEPARTURE.
1.
Reclin’d beneath a Cocoa’s feathery shade Ladurlad lies,
And Kailyal on his lap her head hath laid,
To hide her streaming eyes.
The boatman, sailing on his easy way,
With envious eye beheld them where they lay;
For every herb and flower
Was fresh and fragrant with the early dew;
Sweet sung the birds in that delicious hour,
And the cool gale of morning as it blew,
Not yet subdued by day’s increasing power,
Ruffling the surface of the silvery stream,
Swept o’er the moisten’d sand, and rais’d no shower.
Telling their tale of love,
The boatman thought they lay
At that lone hour, and who so blest as they!
2.
But now the sun in heaven is high,
The little songsters of the sky
Sit silent in the sultry hour,
They pant and palpitate with heat;
Their bills are open languidly
To catch the passing air;
They hear it not, they feel it not,
It murmurs not, it moves not.
The boatman, as he looks to land,
Admires what men so mad to linger there,
For yonder Cocoa’s shade behind them falls,
A single spot upon the burning sand.
3.
There all the morning was Ladurlad laid,
Silent and motionless, like one at ease;
There motionless upon her father’s knees,
Reclin’d the silent maid.
The man was still, pondering with steady mind,
As if it; were another’s Curse,
His own portentous lot;
Scanning it o’er and o’er in busy thought,
As though it were a last night’s tale of woe,
Before the cottage door,
By some old beldame sung,
While young and old assembled round,
Listened, as if by witchery bound,
In fearful pleasure to her wonderous tongue.
4.
Musing so long he lay, that all things seem
Unreal to his sense, even like a dream,
A monstrous dream of things which could not be.
That beating, burning brow,... why it was now
The height of noon, and he was lying there
In the broad sun, all bare!
What if he felt no wind? the air was still,
That was the general will
Of nature, not his own peculiar doom;
Yon rows of rice erect and silent stand,
The shadow of the Cocoa’s lightest plume
Is steady on the sand.
5.
Is it indeed a dream? he rose to try,
Impatient to the water-side he went,
And down he bent,
And in the stream he plung’d his hasty arm
To break the visionary charm.
With fearful eye and fearful heart,
His daughter watch’d the event;
She saw the start and shudder,
She heard the in-drawn groan,
For the Water knew Kehama’s charm,
The water shrunk before his arm.
His dry hand mov’d about unmoisten’d there;
As easily might that dry hand avail
To stop the passing gale,
Or grasp the impassive air.
He is Almighty then!
Exclaim’d the wretched man in his despair;
AJr knows him, Water knows him; Sleep
His dreadful word will keep;
Even in the grave there is no rest for me,
Cut off from that last hope,... the wretches’ joy;
And Veeshnoo hath no power to save,
Nor Seeva to destroy.
6.
Oh! wrong not them! quoth Kailyal,
Wrong not the Heavenly Powers!
Our hope is all in them: They are not blind!
And lighter wrongs than ours,
And lighter crimes than his,
Have drawn the Incarnate down among mankind.
Already have the Immortals heard our cries,
And in the mercy of their righteousness
Beheld us in the hour of our distress!
She spake with streaming eyes,
Where pious love and ardent feeling beam;
And turning to the Image, threw
Her grateful arms around it,... It was thou
Who saved’st me from the stream!
My Marriataly, it was thou!
I had not else been here
To share my Father’s Curse,
To suffer now,... and yet to thank thee thus!
7.
Here then, the maiden cried, dear Father, here
Raise our own Goddess, our divine Preserver!
The mighty of the earth despise her rites,
She loves the poor who serve her.
Set up her image here,
With heart and voice the guardian Goddess bless,
For jealously would she resent
Neglect and thanklessness....
Set up her image here,
And bless her for her aid with tongue and soul sincere.
8.
So saying, on her knees the maid
Began the pious toil.
Soon their joint labour scoops the easy soil;
They raise the image up with reverent hand,
And round its rooted base they heap the sand.
O Thou whom we adore,
O Marriataly, thee do I implorer
The virgin cried; my Goddess, pardon thou
The unwilling wrong, that I no more,
With dance and song,
Can do thy daily service, as of yore!
The flowers which last I wreath’d around thy brow,
Are withering there; and never now
Shall I at eve adore thee,
And swimming round with arms outspread,
Poise the full pitcher on my head,
In dextrous dance before thee;
While underneath the reedy shed, at rest,
My father sate the evening rites to view,
And blest thy name, and blest
His daughter too.
9.
Then heaving from her heart a heavy sigh,
O Goddess! from that happy home, cried she,
The Almighty Man hath forced us!
And homeward with the thought unconsciously
She turn’d her dizzy eye.... But there on high,
With many a dome, and pinnacle, and spire,
The summits of the Golden Palaces
Blaz’d in the dark blue sky, aloft, like fire.
Father, away! she cried, away!
Why linger we so nigh?
For not to him hath Nature given
The thousand eyes of Deity,
Always and every where with open sight,
To persecute our flight!
Away... away! she said,
And took her father’s hand, and like a child
He followed where she led.
V. THE SEPARATION.
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 m
ore 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