e king assailed.
With surest aim his arrows flew:
The driver and the steeds he slew.
And shattered with the pointed steel
Car, flag, and pole and yoke and wheel.
As Indra hurls his bolt to smite
Mount Meru's heaven-ascending height,
So Rama with a flaming dart
Struck Lanka's monarch near the heart,
Who reeled and fell beneath the blow
And from loose fingers dropped his bow.
Bright as the sun, with crescent head,
From Rama's bow an arrow sped,
And from his forehead, proud no more,
Cleft the bright coronet he wore.
Then Rama stood by Ravan's side
And to the conquered giant cried:
"Well hast thou fought: thine arm has slain
Strong heroes of the Vanar train.
I will not strike or slay thee now,
For weary, faint with fight art thou.
To Lanka's town thy footsteps bend,
And there the night securely spend.
To-morrow come with car and bow,
And then my prowess shalt thou know."

He ceased: the king in humbled pride
Rose from the earth and naught replied.
With wounded limbs and shattered crown
He sought again his royal town.

Canto LX. Kumbhakarna Roused.

With humbled heart and broken pride
Through Lanka's gate the giant hied,
Crushed, like an elephant beneath
A lion's spring and murderous teeth,
Or like a serpent 'neath the wing
And talons of the Feathered King.
Such was the giant's wild alarm
At arrows shot by Rama's arm;
Shafts with red lightning round them curled,
Like Brahma's bolts that end the world.

Supported on his golden throne,
With failing eye and humbled tone,
"Giants," he cried, "the toil is vain,
Fruitless the penance and the pain,
If I whom Indra owned his peer,
Secure from Gods, a mortal fear.
My soul remembers, now too late,
Lord Brahma's words who spoke my fate:
"Tremble, proud Giant," thus they ran,
"And dread thy death from slighted man.
Secure from Gods and demons live,
And serpents, by the boon I give.
Against their power thy life is charmed,
But against man is still unarmed."
This Rama is the man foretold
By Anaranya's(965) lips of old:

"Fear, Ravan, basest of the base:
For of mine own imperial race
A prince in after time shall spring
And thee and thine to ruin bring.
And Vedavati,(966) ere she died
Slain by my ruthless insult, cried:
"A scion of my royal line
Shall slay, vile wretch, both thee and thine."
She in a later birth became
King Janak's child, now Rama's dame.
Nandisvara(967) foretold this fate,
And Uma(968) when I moved her hate,
And Rambha,(969