g leaves,
There lived a pair of doves.

Never were they two separate,
And lo, in idle mood,
I took a sling and ball, elate
In wicked sport and rude--

And killed one bird--it was the male,
Oh cruel deed and base!
The female gave a plaintive wail
And looked me in the face!

The wail and sad reproachful look
In plain words seemed to say,
A widowed life I cannot brook,
The forfeit thou must pay.

What was my darling's crime that thou
Him wantonly shouldst kill?
The curse of blood is on thee now,
Blood calls for red blood still.

And so I die--a bloody death--
But not for this I mourn,
To feel the world pass with my breath
I gladly could have borne,

But for my parents, who are blind,
And have no other stay--
This, this, weighs sore upon my mind,
And fills me with dismay.

Upon the eleventh day of the moon
They keep a rigorous fast,
All yesterday they fasted; soon
For water and repast

They shall upon me feebly call!
Ah, must they call in vain?
Bear thou the pitcher, friend--'tis all
I ask--down that steep lane."

He pointed--ceased--then sudden died!
The king took up the corpse,
And with the pitcher slowly hied,
Attended by Remorse,

Down the steep lane--unto the hut
Girt round with _Bela_-trees;
Gleamed far a light--the door not shut
Was open to the breeze.

PART III

"Oh why does not our child return?
Too long he surely stays."--
Thus to the _Muni_, blind and stern,
His partner gently says.

"For fruits and water when he goes
He never stays so long,
Oh can it be, beset by foes,
He suffers cruel wrong?

Some distance he has gone, I fear,
A more circuitous round--
Yet why should he? The fruits are near,
The river near our bound.

I die of thirst--it matters not
If Sindhu be but safe,
What if he leave us, and this spot,
Poor birds in cages chafe.

Peevish and fretful oft we are--
Ah, no--that cannot be:
Of our blind eyes he is the star,
Without him, what were we?

Too much he loves us to forsake,
But something ominous,
Here in my heart, a dreadful ache,
Says, he is gone from us.

Why do my bowels for him yearn,
What ill has crossed his pa