is peevish still,
Dear to their hearts he was,--so dear,
That none his place might fill.

They called him Sindhu, and his name
Was ever on their tongue,
And he, nor cared for wealth nor fame,
Who dwelt his own among.

A belt of _Bela_ trees hemmed round
The cottage small and rude,
If peace on earth was ever found
'Twas in that solitude.

PART II.

Great Dasarath, the King of Oude,
Whom all men love and fear,
With elephants and horses proud
Went forth to hunt the deer.

Oh gallant was the long array!
Pennons and plumes were seen,
And swords that mirrored back the day,
And spears and axes keen.

Rang trump, and conch, and piercing fife,
Woke Echo from her bed!
The solemn woods with sounds were rife
As on the pageant sped.

Hundreds, nay thousands, on they went!
The wild beasts fled away!
Deer ran in herds, and wild boars spent
Became an easy prey.

Whirring the peacocks from the brake
With Argus wings arose,
Wild swans abandoned pool and lake
For climes beyond the snows.

From tree to tree the monkeys sprung,
Unharmed and unpursued,
As louder still the trumpets rung
And startled all the wood.

The porcupines and such small game
Unnoted fled at will,
The weasel only caught to tame
From fissures in the hill.

Slunk light the tiger from the bank,
But sudden turned to bay!
When he beheld the serried rank
That barred his tangled way.

Uprooting fig-trees on their path,
And trampling shrubs and flowers,
Wild elephants, in fear and wrath,
Burst through, like moving towers.

Lowering their horns in crescents grim
Whene'er they turned about,
Retreated into coverts dim
The bisons' fiercer rout.

And in this mimic game of war
In bands dispersed and past
The royal train,--some near, some far,
As day closed in at last.

Where was the king? He left his friends
At midday, it was known,
And now that evening fast descends
Where was he? All alone.

Curving, the river formed a lake,
Upon whose bank he stood,
No noise the silence there to break,
Or mar the solitude.

Upon the glassy surface fell
The last beams of the day,
Like fiery darts, that lengthening swell,
As bre