TAL ELLIPSIS~}

The saint Valmiki, with a friend's delight,
Graced Sita's offspring with each holy rite.
Kusa and Lava--such the names they bore--
Learnt, e'en in childhood, all the Vedas' lore;
And then the bard, their minstrel souls to train,
Taught them to sing his own immortal strain.
And Rama's deeds her boys so sweetly sang,
That Sita's breast forgot her bitterest pang.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

Then Sita's children, by the saint's command,
Sang the Ramayan, wandering through the land.
How could the glorious poem fail to gain
Each heart, each ear that listened to the strain!
So sweet each minstrel's voice who sang the praise
Of Rama deathless in Valmiki's lays.
Rama himself amid the wondering throng
Marked their fair forms, and loved the noble song,
While, still and weeping, round the nobles stood,
As, on a windless morn, a dewy wood.
On the two minstrels all the people gazed,
Praised their fair looks and marvelled as they praised;
For every eye amid the throng could trace
Rama's own image in each youthful face.
Then spoke the king himself and bade them say
Who was their teacher, whose the wondrous lay.
Soon as Valmiki, mighty saint, he saw,
He bowed his head in reverential awe.
"These are thy children" cried the saint, "recall
Thine own dear Sita, pure and true through all."
"O holy father," thus the king replied,
"The faithful lady by the fire was tried;
But the foul demon's too successful arts
Raised light suspicions in my people's hearts.
Grant that their breasts may doubt her faith no more,
And thus my Sita and her sons restore."

_Raghuvansa Cantos XIV, XV._

Parasurama, Page 87.

"He cleared the earth thrice seven times of the Kshatriya caste, and
filled with their blood the five large lakes of Samanta, from which he
offered libations to the race of Bhrigu. Offering a solemn sacrifice to
the King of the Gods Parasurama presented the earth to the ministering
priests. Having given the earth to Kasyapa, the hero of immeasurable
prowess retired to the Mahendra mountain, where he still resides; and in
this manner was there enmity between him and the race of the Kshatriyas,
and thus was the whole earth conquered by Parasurama." The destruction of
the Kshatriyas by Parasurama had been provoked by the cruelty of the
Kshatriyas. _Chips from a German Workshop_, _Vol._ II. p. 334.

The scene in which he appears is probably interpolated for the sake of
making him declare Rama to be Vishnu. "Herr