the sandal fans,
Faint balm that nests between those gem-bound breasts,
Voices of stream and bird, and clear notes heard
From vina strings amid the songs' unrests,
Wake passion. With light jests,

And sidelong glances, and coy smiles and dances,
Each maid enhances newly sprung delight;
Quick leaps the fire of Love's divine desire,
So kindled in the season when the Night
With broadest moons is bright;

Till on the silvered terraces, sleep-sunken,
With Love's draughts drunken, those close lovers lie;
And--all for sorrow there shall come To-morrow--
The Moon, who watched them, pales in the gray sky,
While the still Night doth die.

* * * * *

Then breaks fierce Day! The whirling dust is driven
O'er earth and heaven, until the sun-scorched plain
Its road scarce shows for dazzling heat to those
Who, far from home and love, journey in pain,
Longing to rest again.

Panting and parched, with muzzles dry and burning,
For cool streams yearning, herds of antelope
Haste where the brassy sky, banked black and high,
Hath clouded promise. "There will be"--they hope--
"Water beyond the tope!"

Sick with the glare, his hooded terrors failing,
His slow coils trailing o'er the fiery dust,
The cobra glides to nighest shade, and hides
His head beneath the peacock's train: he must
His ancient foeman trust!

The purple peafowl, wholly overmastered
By the red morning, droop with weary cries;
No stroke they make to slay that gliding snake
Who creeps for shelter underneath the eyes
Of their spread jewelries!

The jungle lord, the kingly tiger, prowling,
For fierce thirst howling, orbs a-stare and red,
Sees without heed the elephants pass by him,
Lolls his lank tongue, and hangs his bloody head,
His mighty forces fled.

Nor heed the elephants that tiger, plucking
Green leaves, and sucking with a dry trunk dew;
Tormented by the blazing day, they wander,
And, nowhere finding water, still renew
Their search--a woful crew!

With restless snout rooting the dark morasses,
Where reeds and grasses on the soft slime grow,
The wild-boars, grunting ill-content and anger,
Dig lairs to shield them