angs
Are most severe when life is plucked, and from
Sere age, when all is ready for the end,
Life unperceived goes as from one that sleeps.
The gentlest wind brings down the serest leaf.
To sever from the parent stem by force
The freshest must be plucked, and so with man.
And by the righteous and the just, when sore
Oppressed with grief, dear death is welcomed most.
When the eruptions on the skin pain most,
By cutting them relief at once is sought;
E'en so, if noble Timmaraj is killed,
Court instant death, thy dagger hurl, and bare
Thy breast and lifeless by thy husband fall,
Like that same bird that, full up to the throat,
Swallows the little pebbles of the sand,
And, soaring high aloft upon her wings,
Suddenly closes them and drops down dead
Near her dead lover, where the body bursts.
But this, if you find hard, run with thy life
To this our safe abode, where willingly
The fun'ral pyre we, with our hands, will raise
And feed the flames thy body to consume.
Hence soon depart and Krishna will help thee."
The morrow came, and Chandra sallied forth
And, as directed by her Brahmin sage,
Went with a hundred of her armed men,
All veiled, surprised the foe, who, flushed with hope,
Unguarded waited but to welcome her:
Then safely rescued her lost Timmaraj;
The fatal jav'lin wrung from Bukka's hands,
And himself too a prisoner brought in chains.
Then in the spacious palace hall, amidst
Her faithful men, the noble queen sat veiled
With Timmaraj, long absent from the throne,
And spake to Bukka, standing in the front
With folded hands, in angry words like these:
"By treach'ry thrice thou triedst to win, and thrice
Hast failed, and, when my noble Timmaraj
Went singly forth to bring the maddened beast,
Concealed thou didst aim at his life and failed.
The hand of God had otherwise decreed.
And when upon the bridal seat we sat,
And all were merry in my father's home,
Thou camest with a story, false and base,
And for our lives we had to flee, and now
Are strangers here, and when upon thy steed
Unjustly thou pursuedst us both, it was
My hand that stayed my husband killing thee,
Else long ago the worms had eaten thee;
Thy bones the jackals of the earth had tak'n;
And nothing left of thee but thine own sins.
It was thy charger innocent that paid
For them the penalty instead. Once more
You came, and, like a lawless t