And the startling burst of the trumpet’s blare;
And the gong, that seems, with its thunders dread,
To astound the living, and waken the dead.
The ear-strings throb as if they were rent,
And the eyelids drop as stunned and spent.
Fain would the Maid have kept them fast;
But open they start at the crack of the blast.
7.
“Where art thou, Son of Heaven, Ereenia! where,
In this dread hour of horror and despair?”
Thinking on him, she strove her fear to quell:
“If he be near me, then will all be well;
And, if he reck not for my misery,
Let come the worst; it matters not to me.”
Repel that wrongful thought,
O Maid! thou feelest, but believ’st it not;
It is thine own imperfect nature’s fault
That lets one doubt of him arise within.
And this the Virgin knew, and like a sin
Repelled the thought, and still believed him true,
And summoned up her spirit to endure
All forms of fear, in that firm trust secure.
8.
She needs that faith, she needs that consolation;
For now the Car hath measured back its track
Of death, and hath re-entered now its station.
There, in the Temple-court, with song and dance,
A harlot-band, to meet the Maid, advance.
The drum hath ceased its peals; the trump and gong
Are still; the frantic crowd forbear their yells;
And sweet it was to hear the voice of song,
And the sweet music of their girdle-bells,
Armlets and anklets, that, with cheerful sound,
Symphonious tinkled as they wheeled around.
9.
They sung a bridal measure,
A song of pleasure,
A hymn of joyance and of gratulation:
“Go, chosen One!” they cried,
“Go, happy bride!
For thee the God descends in expectation!
For thy dear sake
He leaves his Heaven, O Maid of matchless charms
Go, happy One! the bed divine partake,
And fill his longing arms!”
Thus to the inner fane,
With circling dance and hymeneal strain,
The astonished Maid they led,
And there they laid her on the bridal bed.
Then forth they go, and close the Temple-gate,
And leave the wretched Kailyal to her fate.
10.
‘ Where art thou, Son of Heaven, Ereenia! where?
From the loathed bed she starts, and in the air
Looks up, as if she thought to find him there;
Then, in despair,
Anguish and agony, and hopeless prayer,
Prostrate she laid herself upon the floor.
There, trembling as she lay,
The Bramin of the fane advanced,
And came to seize his prey;
But, as the abominable Priest drew nigh,
A power invisible opposed his way.
Starting, he uttered wildly a death-cry,
And fell. At that the Maid all eagerly
Lifted in hope her head;
She thought her own deliverer had been near;
When, lo! with other life re-animate,
She saw the dead arise;
And, in the fiendish joy within his eyes,
She knew the hateful Spirit who looked through
Their specular orbs: clothed in the flesh of man,
She knew the accursèd Soul of Arvalan.
11.
“Where art thou, Son of Heaven, Ereenia! where?”
But not in vain, with sudden shriek of fear,
She calls Ereenia now; the Glendoveer
Is here! Upon the guilty sight he burst
Like lightning from a cloud, and caught the accurst,
Bore him to the roof aloft, and on the floor
With vengeance dashed him, quivering there in gore.
Lo! from the pregnant air, heart-withering sight,
There issued forth the dreadful Lorrinite.
“Seize him!” the Enchantress cried:
A host of Demons at her word appear,
And, like tornado-winds, from every side
At once they rush upon the Glendoveer.
Alone against a legion, little here
Avails his single might;
Nor that celestial falchion, which in fight
So oft had put the rebel race to flight.
There are no Gods on earth to give him aid:
Hemmed round, he is overpowered, beat down, and bound,
And at the feet of Lorrinite is laid.
12.
Meantime the scattered members of the slain,
Obedient to her mighty voice, assumed
Their vital form again;
And that foul Spirit, upon vengeance bent,
Fled to the fleshly tenement.
“Lo! here,” quoth Lorrinite, “ thou seest thy foe!
Him in the Ancient Sepulchres, below
The billows of the Ocean, will I lay:
Gods are there none to help him now, and there
For Man there is no way.
To that dread scene of durance and despair,
Azuras, bear your enemy! I go
To chain him in the Tombs. Meantime, do thou.
Freed from thy foe, and now secure from fear,
Son of Kehama! take thy pleasure here.”
13.
Her words the accursèd race obeyed:
Forth with a sound like rushing winds they fled;
And, of all aid from Earth or Heaven bereft,
Alone with Arvalan the Maid was left.
But, in that hour of agony, the Maid
Deserted not herself: her very dread
Had calmed her; and her heart
Knew the whole horror, and its only part.
“Yamen, receive me undefiled!” she said,
And seized a torch, and fired the bridal bed.
Up ran the rapid flames; on every side
They find their fuel wheresoe’er they spread,
Thin hangings, fragrant gums, and odorous wood,
That piled like sacrificial altars stood.
Around they run, and upward they aspire;
And, lo! the huge Pagoda lined with fire!
14.
The wicked Soul, who had assumed again
A form of sensible flesh for his foul will,
Still bent on base revenge, and baffled still.
Felt that corporeal shape alike to pain
Obnoxious as to pleasure: forth he flew,
Howling and scorched by the devouring flame;
Accursed Spirit! still condemned to rue,
The act of sin and punishment the same.
Freed from his loathsome touch, a natural dread
Came on the self-devoted; and she drew
Back from the flames which now toward her spread,
And, like a living monster, seemed to dart
Their hungry tongues toward their shrinking prey.
Soon she subdued her heart:
“O Father!” she exclaimed, “there was no way
But this! and thou, Ereenia! who for me
Sufferest, my soul shall bear thee company.”
15.
So having said, she knit
Her body up to work her soul’s desire,
And rush at once among the thickest fire.
A sudden cry withheld her: “Kailyal, stay!
Child! daughter! I am here!” the voice exclaims;
And from the gate, unharmed, through smoke and flames,
Like as a God, Ladurlad made his way,
Wrapped his preserving arms around, and bore
His Child, uninjured, o’er the burning floor
.
XV. THE CITY OF BALY.
1.
KAILYAL.
Ereenia!
LADURLAD.
Nay, let no reproachful thought
Wrong his heroic heart! The Evil Powers
Have the dominion o’er this wretched World,
And no good Spirit now can venture here.
KAILYAL.
Alas, my Father! he hath ventured here,
And saved me from one horror. But the Powers
Of Evil beat him down, and bore away
To some dread scene of durance and despair;
The Ancient Tombs, methought their mistress said,
Beneath the ocean waves: no way for Man
Is there; and Gods, she boasted, there are none
On Earth to help him now.
LADURLAD.
Is that her boast?
And hath she laid him in the Ancient Tombs,
Relying that the Waves will guard him there?
Short-sighted are the eyes of Wickedness,
And all its craft but folly. O my child!
The Curses of the Wicked are upon me;
And the immortal Deities, who see
And suffer all things for their own wise end,
Have made them blessings to us!
KAILYAL.
Then thou knowest
Where they have borne him?
LADURLAD.
To the Sepulchres
Of the Ancient Kings, which Baly, in his power
Made in primeval times, and built above them
A City, like the Cities of the Gods,
Being like a God himself. For many an age
Hath Ocean warred against his Palaces,
Till, overwhelmed, they lie beneath the waves,
Not overthrown, so well the awful Chief
Had laid their deep foundations. Rightly said
The Accursed, that no way for Man was there;
But not like Man am I!
2.
Up from the ground the Maid exultant sprung,
And clapped her happy hands in attitude
Of thanks to Heaven, and flung
Her arms around her Father’s neck, and stood
Struggling awhile for utterance, with excess
Of hope and pious thankfulness.
“Come, come!” she cried. “Oh, let us not delay
He is in torments there! — away! away!”
3.
Long time they travelled on; at dawn of day
Still setting forward with the earliest light,
Nor ceasing from their way
Till darkness closed the night.
Short refuge from the noontide heat,
Reluctantly compelled, the Maiden took,
And ill her indefatigable feet
Could that brief respite brook.
Hope kept her up, and her intense desire
Supports that heart which ne’er at danger quails,
Those feet which never tire,
That frame which never fails.
4.
Their talk was of the City of the days
Of old, Earth’s wonder once, and of the fame
Of Baly, its great founder, — he whose name,
In ancient story and in poet’s praise,
Liveth and flourisheth for endless glory,
Because his might
Put down the wrong, and aye upheld the right;
Till for ambition, as old sages tell.
At length the universal Monarch fell:
For he, too, having made the World his own,
Then in his pride, had driven
The Devetas from Heaven,
And seized triumphantly the Swerga throne.
The Incarnate came before the Mighty One
In dwarfish stature, and in mien obscure:
The sacred cord he bore,
And asked, for Brama’s sake, a little boon,
Three steps of Baly’s ample reign, — no more.
Poor was the boon required, and poor was he
Who begged, — a little wretch it seemed to be.
But Baly ne’er refused a suppliant’s prayer:
He on the Dwarf cast down
A glance of pity in contemptuous mood,
And bade him take the boon,
And measure where he would.
5.
“Lo, Son of giant birth,
I take my grant!” the Incarnate Power replies.
With his first step he measured o’er the Earth;
The second spanned the skies.
“Three paces thou hast granted;
Twice have I set my footstep,” Vishnu cries;
“Where shall the third be planted?”
6.
Then Baly knew the God; and at his feet,
In homage due, he laid his humbled head.
“Mighty art thou, O Lord of Earth and Heaven!
Mighty art thou!” he said;
“Be merciful, and let me be forgiven.”
He asked for mercy of the Merciful,
And mercy for his virtue’s sake was shown.
For though he was cast down to Padalon,
Yet there, by Yamen’s throne,
Doth Baly sit in majesty and might,
To judge the dead, and sentence them aright.
And, forasmuch as he was still the friend
Of righteousness, it is permitted him,
Yearly, from those drear regions to ascend,
And walk the Earth, that he may hear his name
Still hymned and honored by the grateful voice
Of human-kind, and in his fame rejoice.
7.
Such was the talk they held upon their way,
Of him to whose old City they were bound;
And now, upon their journey, many a day
Had risen and closed, and many a week gone round,
And many a realm and region had they passed,
When now the Ancient Towers appeared at last
8.
Their golden summits, in the noonday light,
Shone o’er the dark-green deep that rolled between;
For domes and pinnacles and spires were seen
Peering above the sea, — a mournful sight!
Well might the sad beholder ween from thence
What works of wonder the devouring wave
Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave
Bore record of their old magnificence.
And on the sandy shore, beside the verge
Of Ocean, here and there, a rock-hewn fane
Resisted in its strength the surf and surge
That on their deep foundation? beat in vain.
In solitude the Ancient Temples stood,
Once resonant with instrument and song,
And solemn dance of festive multitude;
Now, as the weary ages pass along,
Hearing no voice save of the Ocean flood,
Which roars for ever on the restless shores;
Or, visiting their solitary caves,
The lonely sound of winds, that moan around
Accordant to the mclancholy waves.
9.
With reverence did the travellers see
The works of ancient days, and silently
Approach the shore. Now on the yellow sand,
Where round their feet the rising surges part,
They stand. Ladurlad’s heart
Exulted in his wondrous destiny.
To Heaven he raised his hand
In attitude of stern, heroic pride:
“Oh, what a power,” he cried,
“Thou dreadful Rajah, doth thy Curse impart!
IV. — thank thee now!” Then turning to the Maid,
“Thou seest how far and wide
Yon Towers extend,” he said:
“My search must needs be long. Meantime, the flood
Will cast thee up thy food;
And in the Chambers of the Rock, by night,
Take thou thy safe abode.
No prowling beast, to harm thee or affright,
Can enter there: but wrap thyself with care
From the foul Birds obscene that thirst for blood;
For in such caverns doth the Bat delight
To have its haunts. Do thou, with stone and shout,
Ere thou liest down at evening, scare them out,
And in this robe of mine involve thy feet.
Duly commend us both to Heaven in prayer;
Be of good heart, and may thy sleep be sweet!”
10.
So saying, he put back his arm, and gave
The cloth which girt his loins, and pressed her hand
With fervent love, then from the sand
Advanced into the sea: the coming Wave,
Which knew Kehama’s Curse, before his way
Started, and on he went as on dry land;
And still around his path the waters parted.
She stands upon the shore where seaweeds play,
Lashing her polished ankles; and the spray
Which off her Father, like a rainbow, fled,
Falls on her like a shower: there Kailyal stands,
And sees the billows rise above his head.
She, at the startling sight, forgot the power
The Curse had given him, and held forth her hands
Imploringly: her voice was on the wind.
And the deaf Ocean o’er Ladurlad closed.
Soon she recalled his destiny to mind,
And, shaking off that natural fear, composed
Her soul with prayer, to wait the event resigned.
11.
Alone, upon the solitary strand,
The lovely one is left: behold her go,
Pacing with patient footsteps, to and fro,
Along the bending sand!
Save her, ye Gods! from Evil Powers, and here
From man she need not fear:
For never Traveller comes near
These awful ruins of the days of yore;
Nor fisher’s bark, nor venturous mariner,
Approach the sacred shore.
All day she walked the beach; at night she sought
The Chamber of the Rock, with stone and shout
Assailed the Bats obscene, and scared them out;
Then in her Father’s robe involved her feet,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 150