s food,
Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.'

His prayers are irresistible; but Brahma forewarns him, that the
unbroken descent of Ganga from heaven would be so overpowering, that
the earth would be unable to sustain it, and Siva must be propitiated,
in order that he may receive on his head the precipitous cataract.
Under this wild and unwieldy allegory appears to lurk an obscure
allusion to the course of the Ganges among the summits, and under the
forests of the Himalaya, which are the locks of Siva.

'High on the top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood;
And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water--
Full of wrath, the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter.
To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,
From heaven's height down rush'd she pouring upon Siva's sacred head.
Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep
By her fierce waves o'erborne, down to hell's remotest deep.'

Siva, in his turn enraged, resists her fury.

'Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there
Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair.
Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age the goddess wanders.'

The king again has recourse to his penances, Siva is propitiated, and
the stream by seven[159] channels finds its way to the plains of India.
The spirit and the luxuriance of the description which follows, of the
king leading the way, and the obedient waters rolling after his car,
appear to us of a high order of poetry.

'Up the raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps,
Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps, From the
high heaven burst she forth first on Siva's lofty crown,
Headlong then and prone to earth thundering rushed the
cataract down. Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing;
turtles, dolphins in their mirth, Fallen or falling,
glancing, flashing, to the many gleaming earth. And all the
host of heaven came down, spirits and genii, in amaze, And
each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to
gaze. On cars, like high tower'd cities, seen, with elephants
and coursers, rode, Or on soft swin