ath come this fatal shaft--against a poor recluse like me,
Who shot that bolt with deadly craft--alas! what cruel man is he?
At the lone midnight had I come--to draw the river's limpid flood,
And here am struck to death, by whom?--ah whose this wrongful deed of blood.
Alas! and in my parent's heart--the old, the blind, and hardly fed,
In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart--that here hath struck their
offspring dead.
Ah, deed most profitless as worst--a deed of wanton useless guilt;
As though a pupil's hand accurs'd[146]--his holy master's blood had spilt.
But not mine own untimely fate--it is not that which I deplore,
My blind, my aged parents state--'tis their distress afflicts me more.
That sightless pair, for many a day--from me their scanty food have earned,
What lot is theirs, when I'm away--to the five elements returned?[147]
Alike all wretched they, as I--ah, whose this triple deed of blood?
For who the herbs will now supply--the roots, the fruit, their blameless
food?'
My troubled soul, that plaintive moan--no sooner heard, so faint and low,
Trembled to look on what I'd done--fell from my shuddering hand my bow.
Swift I rushed up, I saw him there--heart-pierced, and fall'n the stream
beside,
That hermit boy with knotted hair--his clothing was the black deer's hide.
On me most piteous turned his look--his wounded breast could scarce respire,
'What wrong, oh Kshatriya,[148] have I done--to be thy deathful arrow's aim,
The forest's solitary son--to draw the limpid stream I came.
Both wretched and both blind they lie--in the wild wood all destitute,
My parents, listening anxiously--to hear my home-returning foot.
By this, thy fatal shaft, this one--three miserable victims fall,
The sire, the mother, and the son--ah why? and unoffending all.
How vain my father's life austere--the Veda's studied page how vain,
He knew not with prophetic fear--his son would fall untimely slain.
But had he known, to one as he--so weak, so blind, 'twere bootless all,
No tree can save another tree--by the sharp hatchet marked to fall.
But to my father's dwelling haste--oh Raghu's[149] son, lest in his ire,
Thy head with burning curse he blast--as the dry forest tree the fire.
Thee to my father's lone retreat--will quickly lead yon onward path,
Oh haste, his pardon to entreat--or ere he cur