f old.
But why so mournful? what has dimmed your light?
Why shine your faces less divinely bright?
Like stars that pour forth weaker, paler gleams,
When the fair moon with brighter radiance beams.
O say, in vain doth mighty INDRA bear
The thunderbolt of heaven, unused to spare?
VRITRA, the furious fiend, 'twas strong to slay:
Why dull and blunted is that might to-day?
See, VARUN'S noose hangs idly on his arm,
Like some fell serpent quelled by magic charm.
Weak is KUVERA'S hand, his arm no more
Wields the dread mace it once so proudly bore;
But like a tree whose boughs are lopped away,
It tells of piercing woe, and dire dismay.
In days of yore how YAMA'S sceptre shone!
Fled are its glories, all its terrors gone;
Despised and useless as a quenched brand,
All idly now it marks the yielding sand.
Fallen are the Lords of Light, ere now the gaze
Shrank from the coming of their fearful blaze;
So changed are they, the undazzled eye may see
Like pictured forms, each rayless deity.
Some baffling power has curbed the breezes' swell:
Vainly they chafe against the secret spell.
We know some barrier checks their wonted course,
When refluent waters seek again their source.
The RUDRAS too--fierce demigods who bear
The curved moon hanging from their twisted hair--
Tell by their looks of fear, and shame, and woe,
Of threats now silenced, of a mightier foe.
Glory and power, ye Gods, were yours of right:
Have ye now yielded to some stronger might,
Even as on earth a general law may be
Made powerless by a special text's decree?
Then say, my sons, why seek ye BRAHMA'S throne?
'Tis mine to frame the worlds, and yours to guard your own."

Then INDRA turned his thousand glorious eyes,
Glancing like lilies when the soft wind sighs,
And in the Gods' behalf, their mighty chief
Urged the Most Eloquent to tell their grief.
Then rose the heavenly Teacher, by whose side
Dim seemed the glories of the Thousand-eyed,
And with his hands outspread, to BRAHMA spake,
Couched on his own dear flower, the daughter of the lake:
"O mighty Being! surely thou dost know
The unceasing fury of our ruthless foe;
For thou canst see the secret thoughts that lie
Deep in the heart, yet open to thine eye.
The vengeful TARAK, in resistless might,
Like some dire Comet, gleaming wild affright,
O'er all the worlds an evil influence sheds,
And, in thy favou