from the torturing glow,
Deep, deep as they can go.

The frog, for misery of his pool departing--
'Neath that flame-darting ball--and waters drained
Down to their mud, crawls croaking forth, to cower
Under the black-snake's coils, where there is gained
A little shade; and, strained

To patience by such heat, scorching the jewel
Gleaming so cruel on his venomous head,
That worm, whose tongue, as the blast burns along,
Licks it for coolness--all discomfited--
Strikes not his strange friend dead!

The pool, with tender-growing cups of lotus
Once brightly blowing, hath no blossoms more!
Its fish are dead, its fearful cranes are fled,
And crowding elephants its flowery shore
Tramp to a miry floor.

With foam-strings roping from his jowls, and dropping
From dried drawn lips, horns laid aback, and eyes
Mad with the drouth, and thirst-tormented mouth,
Down-thundering from his mountain cavern flies
The bison in wild wise,

Questing a water channel. Bare and scrannel
The trees droop, where the crows sit in a row
With beaks agape. The hot baboon and ape
Climb chattering to the bush. The buffalo
Bellows. And locusts go

Choking the wells. Far o'er the hills and dells
Wanders th' affrighted eye, beholding blasted
The pleasant grass: the forest's leafy mass
Wilted; its waters waned; its grace exhausted;
Its creatures wasted.

Then leaps to view--blood-red and bright of hue--
As blooms sprung new on the Kusumbha-Tree--
The wild-fire's tongue, fanned by the wind, and flung
Furiously forth; the palms, canes, brakes, you see
Wrapped in one agony

Of lurid death! The conflagration, driven
In fiery levin, roars from jungle caves;
Hisses and blusters through the bamboo clusters,
Crackles across the curling grass, and drives
Into the river waves

The forest folk! Dreadful that flame to see
Coil from the cotton-tree--a snake of gold--
Violently break from root and trunk, to take
The bending boughs and leaves in deadly hold
Then passing--to enfold

New spoils! In herds, elephants, jackals, pards,
For anguish of such fate their enmity
Laying aside, burst for the river wide
Which flows between fair