ill beseech,
With trembling hearts and looks of woe,
To spare them, for they fear to go.
And many a plan will they declare
And crafty plots will frame,
And promise fair to show him there,
Unforced, with none to blame.
On every word his lords shall say,
The King will meditate,
And on the third returning day
Recall them to debate.
Then this shall be the plan agreed,
That damsels shall be sent
Attired in holy hermits' weed,
And skilled in blandishment,
That they the hermit may beguile
With every art and amorous wile
Whose use they know so well,
And by their witcheries seduce
The unsuspecting young recluse
To leave his father's cell.
Then when the boy with willing feet
Shall wander from his calm retreat
And in that city stand,
The troubles of the King shall end,
And streams of blessed rain descend
Upon the thirsty land.
Thus shall the holy Rishyasring
To Lomapad, the mighty King,
By wedlock be allied;
For Santa, fairest of the fair,
In mind and grace beyond compare,
Shall be his royal bride.
He, at the Offering of the Steed,
The flames with holy oil shall feed,
And for King Dasaratha gain
Sons whom his prayers have begged in vain,'
I have repeated, sire, thus far,
The words of old Sanatkumar,
In order as he spoke them then
Amid the crowd of holy men."
Then Dasaratha cried with joy,
"Say how they brought the hermit boy."

CANTO IX

RISHYASRING

The wise Sumantra, thus addressed,
Unfolded at the King's behest
The plan the lords in council laid
To draw the hermit from the shade.
The priest, amid the lordly crowd,
To Lomapad thus spoke aloud:--
"Hear, King, the plot our thoughts have framed,
A harmless trick by all unblamed.
Far from the world that hermit's child
Lives lonely in the distant wild:
A stranger to the joys of sense,
His bliss is pain and abstinence;
And all unknown are women yet
To him, a holy anchoret.
The gentle passions we will wake
That with resistless influence shake
The hearts of men; and he
Drawn by enchantment strong and sweet
Shall follow from his lone retreat,
And come and visit thee.
Let ships be formed with utmost care
That artificial trees may bear,
And sweet fruit deftly made;
Let goodly raiment, rich a