"How strange! How strange! Oh happy thou! And couldst thou ask no other boon Than thy poor bracelet's price? That brow Resplendent as the autumn moon Must have bewildered thee, I trow, And made thee lose thy senses all." A dim light on the pedlar now Began to dawn; and he let fall His bracelet basket in his haste, And backward ran the way he came; What meant the vision fair and chaste, Whose eyes were they,--those eyes of flame?
Swift ran the pedlar as a hind, The old priest followed on his trace, They reached the Ghat but could not find The lady of the noble face. The birds were silent in the wood, The lotus flowers exhaled a smell Faint, over all the solitude, A heron as a sentinel Stood by the bank. They called,--in vain, No answer came from hill or fell, The landscape lay in slumber's chain, E'en Echo slept within her cell.
Broad sunshine, yet a hush profound! They turned with saddened hearts to go; Then from afar there came a sound Of silver bells;--the priest said low, "O Mother, Mother, deign to hear, The worship-hour has rung; we wait In meek humility and fear. Must we return home desolate? Oh come, as late thou cam'st unsought, Or was it but an idle dream? Give us some sign if it was not, A word, a breath, or passing gleam."
Sudden from out the water sprung A rounded arm, on which they saw As high the lotus buds among It rose, the bracelet white, with awe. Then a wide ripple tost and swung The blossoms on that liquid plain, And lo! the arm so fair and young Sank in the waters down again. They bowed before the mystic Power, And as they home returned in thought, Each took from thence a lotus flower In memory of the day and spot.
Years, centuries, have passed away, And still before the temple shrine Descendants of the pedlar pay Shell bracelets of the old design As annual tribute. Much they own In lands and gold,--but they confess From that eventful day alone Dawned on their industry,--success. Absurd may be the tale I tell, Ill-suited to the marching times, I loved the lips from which it fell, So let it stand among my rhymes.
_From the Vishnu Purana. B. II. Chap. XIII._
MAITREYA. Of old thou gav'st a promise to relate The deeds of Bharat, that great hermit-king: Beloved Master, now the occasion suits, And I am all attention. PARASARA. Brahman, hear. With a mind fixed intently on his gods Long reigned in Saligram of ancient fame, The mighty monarch of the wide, wide world. Chief of the virtuous, never in his life Harmed he, or strove to harm, his fellow-man, Or any creature sentient. But he left His kingdom in the forest-shades to dwell, And changed his sceptre for a hermit's staff, And with ascetic rites, privations rude, And constant prayers, endeavoured to attain Perfect dominion on his soul. At morn, Fuel, and flowers, and fruit, and holy grass, He gathered for oblations; and he passed In stern devotions all his other hours; Of the world heedless, and its myriad cares, And heedless too of wealth, and love, and fame.