ars, with fasting and with woe;
Pale as the young moon's crescent when
The first faint light returns to men:
Dim as the flame when clouds of smoke
The latent glory hide and choke;
Like Rohini the queen of stars
Oppressed by the red planet Mars;
From her dear friends and husband torn,
Amid the cruel fiends, forlorn,
Who fierce-eyed watch around her kept,
A tender woman sat and wept.
Her sobs, her sighs, her mournful mien,
Her glorious eyes, proclaimed the queen.
"This, this is she," the Vanar cried,
"Fair as the moon and lotus-eyed,
I saw the giant Ravan bear
A captive through the fields of air.
Such was the beauty of the dame;
Her form, her lips, her eyes the same.
This peerless queen whom I behold
Is Rama's wife with limbs of gold.
Best of the sons of men is he,
And worthy of her lord is she."

Canto XVI. Hanuman's Lament.

Then, all his thoughts on Sita bent,
The Vanar chieftain made lament:
"The queen to Rama's soul endeared,
By Lakshman's pious heart revered,
Lies here,--for none may strive with Fate,
A captive, sad and desolate.
The brothers' might full well she knows,
And bravely bears the storm of woes,
As swelling Ganga in the rains
The rush of every flood sustains.
Her lord, for her, fierce Bali slew,
Viradha's monstrous might o'erthrew,
For her the fourteen thousand slain
In Janasthan bedewed the plain.
And if for her Ikshvaku's son
Destroyed the world 'twere nobly done.
This, this is she, so far renowned,
Who sprang from out the furrowed ground,(823)
Child of the high-souled king whose sway
The men of Mithila obey:
The glorious lady wooed and won
By Dasaratha's noblest son;
And now these sad eyes look on her
Mid hostile fiends a prisoner.
From home and every bliss she fled
By wifely love and duty led,
And heedless of a wanderer's woes,
A life in lonely forests chose.
This, this is she so fair of mould.
Whose limbs are bright as burnished gold.
Whose voice was ever soft and mild,
Who sweetly spoke and sweetly smiled.
O, what is Rama's misery! how
He longs to see his darling now!
Pining for one of her fond looks
As one athirst for water brooks.
Absorbed in woe the lady sees
No Rakshas guard, no blooming trees.
Her eyes are with her thoughts, and they
Are fixed on Rama far away."

Canto XVII. Sita's Guard.

His pitying eyes with tears bedewed,
The weeping queen again he viewed,
And saw around the prisoner stand
Her demon guard, a fearful band.
Some earless, som