th life,
Routed and crushed in battle strife,
To Khara's side, like trembling deer
Scared by the hunter, fled in fear.
King Khara saw with furious eye
His scattered giants turn and fly;
Then rallying his broken train
At Raghu's son he drove amain,
Like Rahu(472) when his deadly might
Comes rushing on the Lord of Night.

Canto XXVIII. Khara Dismounted.

But when he turned his eye where bled
Both Trisiras and Dushan dead,
Fear o'er the giant's spirit came
Of Rama's might which naught could tame.
He saw his savage legions, those
Whose force no creature dared oppose,--
He saw the leader of his train
By Rama's single prowess slain.
With burning grief he marked the few
Still left him of his giant crew.
As Namuchi(473) on Indra, so
Rushed the dread demon on his foe.
His mighty bow the monster strained,
And angrily on Rama rained
His mortal arrows in a flood,
Like serpent fangs athirst for blood.
Skilled in the bowman's warlike art,
He plied the string and poised the dart.
Here, on his car, and there, he rode,
And passages of battle showed,
While all the skyey regions grew
Dark with his arrows as they flew.
Then Rama seized his ponderous bow,
And straight the heaven was all aglow
With shafts whose stroke no life might bear
That filled with flash and flame the air,
Thick as the blinding torrents sent
Down from Parjanya's(474) firmament.
In space itself no space remained,
But all was filled with arrows rained
Incessantly from each great bow
Wielded by Rama and his foe.
As thus in furious combat, wrought
To mortal hate, the warriors fought,
The sun himself grew faint and pale,
Obscured behind that arrowy veil.

As when beneath the driver's steel
An elephant is forced to kneel,
So from the hard and pointed head
Of many an arrow Rama bled.
High on his car the giant rose
Prepared in deadly strife to close,
And all the spirits saw him stand
Like Yama with his noose in hand.
For Khara deemed in senseless pride
That he, beneath whose hand had died
The giant legions, failed at length
Slow sinking with exhausted strength.
But Rama, like a lion, when
A trembling deer comes nigh his den,
Feared not the demon mad with hate,--
Of lion might and lion gait.
Then in his lofty car that glowed
With sunlike brilliance Khara rode
At Rama: madly on he came
Like a poor moth that seeks the flame.
His archer skill the fiend displayed,
And at the place where Rama laid
His hand, an arrow cleft in two
The might