o streamlets where the wild flowers grow,
Tell me not, brother, she has strayed
To the dark forest's distant shade
Where blooming boughs are gay and sweet,
And bright birds love the cool retreat.
Alone my love would never dare,--
My timid love,--to wander there.

O Lord of Day whose eye sees all
We act and plan, on thee I call:
For naught is hidden from thy sight,--
Great witness thou of wrong and right.
Where is she, lost or torn away?
Dispel my torturing doubt and say.
And O thou Wind who blowest free,
The worlds have naught concealed from thee.
List to my prayer, reveal one trace
Of her, the glory of her race.
Say, is she stolen hence, or dead,
Or do her feet the forest tread?"

Thus with disordered senses, faint
With woe he poured his sad complaint,
And then, a better way to teach,
Wise Lakshman spoke in seemly speech:
"Up, brother dear, thy grief subdue,
With heart and soul thy search renew.
When woes oppress and dangers threat
Brave effort ne'er was fruitless yet."

He spoke, but Rama gave no heed
To valiant Lakshman's prudent rede.
With double force the flood of pain
Rushed o'er his yielding soul again.

Canto LXV. Rama's Wrath.

With piteous voice, by woe subdued,
Thus Raghu's son his speech renewed:

"Thy steps, my brother, quickly turn
To bright Godavari and learn
If Sita to the stream have hied
To cull the lilies on its side."

Obedient to the words he said,
His brother to the river sped.
The shelving banks he searched in vain,
And then to Rama turned again.

"I searched, but found her not," he cried;
"I called aloud, but none replied.
Where can the Maithil lady stray,
Whose sight would chase our cares away?
I know not where, her steps untraced,
Roams Sita of the dainty waist."

When Rama heard the words he spoke
Again he sank beneath the stroke,
And with a bosom anguish-fraught
Himself the lovely river sought.
There standing on the shelving side,
"O Sita, where art thou?" he cried.
No spirit voice an answer gave,
No murmur from the trembling wave
Of sweet Godavari declared
The outrage which the fiend had dared.
"O speak!" the pitying spirits cried,
But yet the stream their prayer denied,
Nor dared she, coldly mute, relate
To the sad chief his darling's fate
Of Ravan's awful form she thought,
And the dire deed his arm had wrought,
And still withheld by fear dismayed,
The tale for which the mourner prayed.
When hope was none, his heart to cheer,
That