s 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 passed
The royal train--some near, some far,
As day closed in at last.

Where was the king? He left his friends
At mid-day, 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, I
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 breezes wake and play.

Osiers and willows on the edge
And purple buds and red,
Leant down--and 'mid the pale green sedge
The lotus raised its head.

And softly, softly, hour by hour
Light faded, and a veil
Fell over tree, and wave, and flower,
On came the twilight pale.

Deeper and deeper grew the shades,
Stars glimmered in the sky,
The nightingale along the glades
Raised her preluding cry.
What is that momentary flash?
A gleam of silver scales
Reveals the _Mahseer_;--then a splash,
And calm again prevails.

As darkness settled like a pall
The eye would pierce in vain,
The fireflies gemmed the bushes all,
Like fiery drops of rain.

Pleased with the scene--and knowing not
Which way, alas! to go,
The monarch lingered on the spot--
The lake spread bright below.

He lingered, when--oh hark! oh hark
What sound salutes his ear!
A roebuck drinking in the dark,
Not hunted,