e pressed,
Still as a post, with sleepless eye,
The air his food, his roof the sky.
The year had past. Then Uma's lord,(198)
King of creation, world adored,
Thus spoke to great Bhagirath: "I,
Well pleased thy wish will gratify,
And on my head her waves shall fling
The daughter of the Mountains' King!"

He stood upon the lofty crest
That crowns the Lord of Snow,
And bade the river of the Blest
Descend on earth below.
Himalaya's child, adored of all,
The haughty mandate heard,
And her proud bosom, at the call,
With furious wrath was stirred.
Down from her channel in the skies
With awful might she sped
With a giant's rush, in a giant's size,
On Siva's holy head.
"He calls me," in her wrath she cried,
"And all my flood shall sweep
And whirl him in its whelming tide
To hell's profoundest deep."
He held the river on his head,
And kept her wandering, where,
Dense as Himalaya's woods, were spread
The tangles of his hair.
No way to earth she found, ashamed,
Though long and sore she strove,
Condemned, until her pride were tamed,
Amid his locks to rove.
There, many lengthening seasons through,
The wildered river ran:
Bhagirath saw it, and anew
His penance dire began.
Then Siva, for the hermit's sake,
Bade her long wanderings end,
And sinking into Vindu's lake
Her weary waves descend.
From Ganga, by the God set free,
Seven noble rivers came;
Hladini, Pavani, and she
Called Nalini by name:
These rolled their lucid waves along
And sought the eastern side.
Suchakshu, Sita fair and strong,
And Sindhu's mighty tide--(199)
These to the region of the west
With joyful waters sped:
The seventh, the brightest and the best,
Flowed where Bhagirath led.
On Siva's head descending first
A rest the torrents found:
Then down in all their might they burst
And roared along the ground.
On countless glittering scales the beam
Of rosy morning flashed,
Where fish and dolphins through the stream
Fallen and falling dashed.
Then bards who chant celestial lays
And nymphs of heavenly birth
Flocked round upon that flood to gaze
That streamed from sky to earth.
The Gods themselves from every sphere,
Incomparably bright,
Borne in their golden cars drew near
To see the wondrous sight.
The cloudless sky was all aflame
With the light of a hundred suns
Where'er the shining chariots came
That bore those holy ones.
So flashed the air with crested snakes
And fish of