here is none to share her fears,
For how could she communicate
The sad cause of her bidden tears?
The doom approached, the fatal date.

No help from man. Well, be it so!
No sympathy,--it matters not!
God can avert the heavy blow!
He answers worship. Thus she thought.
And so, her prayers, by day and night,
Like incense rose unto the throne;
Nor did she vow neglect or rite
The Veds enjoin or helpful own.
Upon the fourteenth of the moon,
As nearer came the time of dread,
In Joystee, that is May or June,
She vowed her vows and Bramins fed.

And now she counted e'en the hours,
As to Eternity they past;
O'er head the dark cloud darker lowers,
The year is rounding full at last.
To-day,--to-day,--with doleful sound
The word seem'd in her ear to ring!
O breaking heart,--thy pain profound
Thy husband knows not, nor the king,
Exiled and blind, nor yet the queen;
But One knows in His place above.
To-day,--to-day,--it will be seen
Which shall be victor, Death or Love!

Incessant in her prayers from morn,
The noon is safely tided,--then
A gleam of faint, faint hope is born,
But the heart fluttered like a wren
That sees the shadow of the hawk
Sail on,--and trembles in affright,
Lest a down-rushing swoop should mock
Its fortune, and o'erwhelm it quite.
The afternoon has come and gone
And brought no change;--should she rejoice?
The gentle evening's shades come on,
When hark!--She hears her husband's voice!

"The twilight is most beautiful!
Mother, to gather fruit I go,
And fuel,--for the air is cool
Expect me in an hour or so."
"The night, my child, draws on apace,"
The mother's voice was heard to say,
"The forest paths are hard to trace
In darkness,--till the morrow stay."
"Not hard for me, who can discern
The forest-paths in any hour,
Blindfold I could with ease return,
And day has not yet lost its power."

"He goes then," thought Savitri, "thus
With unseen bands Fate draws us on
Unto the place appointed us;
We feel no outward force,--anon
We go to marriage or to death
At a determined time and place;
We are her playthings; with her breath
She blows us where she lists in space.
What is my duty? It is clear,