f was found,
Looked each on other, friend and foe,
In sympathy of levelling woe:
No shade of difference between
Foe, friend, or neutral, there was seen.
Without a joy, her bosom rent
With grief for Rama's banishment,
Ayodhya like the queen appears
Who mourns her son with many tears."

He ended: and the king, distressed.
With sobbing voice that lord addressed:
"Ah me, by false Kaikeyi led,
Of evil race, to evil bred,
I took no counsel of the sage,
Nor sought advice from skill and age,
I asked no lord his aid to lend,
I called no citizen or friend.
Rash was my deed, bereft of sense
Slave to a woman's influence.
Surely, my lord, a woe so great
Falls on us by the will of Fate;
It lays the house of Raghu low,
For Destiny will have it so.
I pray thee, if I e'er have done
An act to please thee, yea, but one,
Fly, fly, and Rama homeward lead:
My life, departing, counsels speed.
Fly, ere the power to bid I lack,
Fly to the wood: bring Rama back.
I cannot live for even one
Short hour bereaved of my son.
But ah, the prince, whose arms are strong,
Has journeyed far: the way is long:
Me, me upon the chariot place,
And let me look on Rama's face.
Ah me, my son, mine eldest-born,
Where roams he in the wood forlorn,
The wielder of the mighty bow,
Whose shoulders like the lion's show?
O, ere the light of life be dim,
Take me to Sita and to him.
O Rama, Lakshman, and O thou
Dear Sita, constant to thy vow,
Beloved ones, you cannot know
That I am dying of my woe."

The king to bitter grief a prey,
That drove each wandering sense away,
Sunk in affliction's sea, too wide
To traverse, in his anguish cried:
"Hard, hard to pass, my Queen, this sea
Of sorrow raging over me:
No Rama near to soothe mine eye,
Plunged in its lowest deeps I lie.
Sorrow for Rama swells the tide,
And Sita's absence makes it wide:
My tears its foamy flood distain,
Made billowy by my sighs of pain:
My cries its roar, the arms I throw
About me are the fish below,
Kaikeyi is the fire that feeds
Beneath: my hair the tangled weeds:
Its source the tears for Rama shed:
The hump-back's words its monsters dread:
The boon I gave the wretch its shore,
Till Rama's banishment be o'er.(334)
Ah me, that I should long to set
My eager eyes to-day
On Raghu's son, and he be yet
With Lakshman far away!"
Thus he of lofty glory wailed,
And sank upon the bed.
Beneath the woe his spirit failed,
And all his senses fled.

C