h and air.
Auspicious breezes sweet and low
To greet the Vanar army blow,
And softly to my listening ear
Come the glad cries of bird and deer.
Bright is the sky around us, bright
Without a cloud the Lord of Light,
And Sukra(903) with propitious love
Looks on thee from his throne above.
The pole-star and the Sainted Seven(904)
Shine brightly in the northern heaven,
And great Trisanku,(905) glorious king,
Ikshvaku's son from whom we spring,
Beams in unclouded glory near
His holy priest(906) whom all revere.
Undimmed the two Visakhas(907) shine,
The strength and glory of our line,
And Nairrit's(908) influence that aids
Our Rakshas foemen faints and fades.
The running brooks are fresh and fair,
The boughs their ripening clusters bear,
And scented breezes gently sway
The leaflet of the tender spray.
See, with a glory half divine
The Vanars' ordered legions shine,
Bright as the Gods' exultant train
Who saw the demon Tarak slain.
O let thine eyes these signs behold,
And bid thy heart be glad and bold."

The Vanar squadrons densely spread
O'er all the country onward sped,
While rising from the rapid beat
Of bears' and monkeys' hastening feet.
Dust hid the earth with thickest veil,
And made the struggling sunbeams pale.
Now where Mahendra's peaks arise
Came Rama of the lotus eyes
And the long arm's resistless might,
And clomb the mountain's wood-crowned height.
Thence Dasaratha's son beheld
Where billowy Ocean rose and swelled,
Past Malaya's peaks and Sahya's chain
The Vanar legions reached the main,
And stood in many a marshalled band
On loud-resounding Ocean's strand.
To the fair wood that fringed the tide
Came Dasaratha's son, and cried:
"At length, my lord Sugriva, we
Have reached King Varun's realm the sea,
And one great thought, still-vexing, how
To cross the flood, awaits us now.
The broad deep ocean, that denies
A passage, stretched before us lies.
Then let us halt and plan the while
How best to storm the giant's isle."

He ceased: Sugriva on the coast
By trees o'ershadowed stayed the host,
That seemed in glittering lines to be
The bright waves of a second sea.
Then from the shore the captains gazed
On billows which the breezes raised
To fury, as they dashed in foam
O'er Varun's realm, the Asurs' home:(909)
The sea that laughed with foam, and danced
With waves whereon the sunbeams glanced:
Where, when the light began to fade,
Huge crocodiles and monsters played;
And, when the moon went