ttle twice-born guest:
See how she clings with trembling wings
To her protector's breast."
"No flesh of lambs," the hawk replied,
"No blood of deer for me;
The falcon loves to feed on doves
And such is Heaven's decree.
But if affection for the dove
Thy pitying heart has stirred,
Let thine own flesh my maw refresh,
Weighed down against the bird."
He carved the flesh from off his side,
And threw it in the scale,
While women's cries smote on the skies
With loud lament and wail.
He hacked the flesh from side and arm,
From chest and back and thigh,
But still above the little dove
The monarch's scale stood high.
He heaped the scale with piles of flesh,
With sinews, blood and skin,
And when alone was left him bone
He threw himself therein.
Then thundered voices through the air;
The sky grew black as night;
And fever took the earth that shook
To see that wondrous sight.
The blessed Gods, from every sphere,
By Indra led, came nigh:
While drum and flute and shell and lute
Made music in the sky.
They rained immortal chaplets down,
Which hands celestial twine,
And softly shed upon his head
Pure Amrit, drink divine.
Then God and Seraph, Bard and Nymph
Their heavenly voices raised,
And a glad throng with dance and song
The glorious monarch praised.
They set him on a golden car
That blazed with many a gem;
Then swiftly through the air they flew,
And bore him home with them.
Thus Kasi's lord, by noble deed,
Won heaven and deathless fame:
And when the weak protection seek
From thee, do thou the same.

_Scenes from the Ramayan, &c._

Page 108.

The ceremonies that attended the consecration of a king (_Abhikshepa lit.
Sprinkling over_) are fully described in Goldstuecker's Dictionary, from
which the following extract is made: "The type of the inauguration
ceremony as practised at the Epic period may probably be recognized in the
history of the inauguration of _Rama_, as told in the _Ramayana_, and in
that of the inauguration of _Yudhishthira_, as told in the _Mahabharatha_.
Neither ceremony is described in these poems with the full detail which is
given of the vaidik rite in the _Aitareya-Brahmanam_; but the allusion
that Rama was inaugurated by _Vasishtha_ and the other Brahmanas in the
same manner as Indra by the Vasus {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} and the observation which is made in
some passages that a certain rite of the inauguration was performed
'according t