VI. 3.

Whilst every lip with nectar glow'd,
The bridegroom blithe his transformation told;
Round the mirthful goblet flow'd,

And laughter free o'er plains of ether roll'd :
"Thee too, like Vishnu, (said the blushing queen,)
Soft Maya, guileful maid, attends;
But in delight supreme the phantasm ends;
Love crowns the visionary scene."

VII. 1.

Then rose Vrihaspati, who reigns
Beyond red Mangala's terrific sphere,
Wandering o'er cerulean plains:

His periods eloquent heaven loves to hear
Soft as dew on waking flowers.

He told how Taraca with snaky legions,
Envious of supernal powers,

Had menaced long old Meru's golden head,
And Indra's beaming regions

With desolation wild had spread :

VII. 2.

How, when the gods to Brahma flew
In routed squadrons, and his help deplored;
'Sons! (he said) from vengeance due

The fiend must wield secure his fiery sword, (Thus th' unerring Will ordains)

Till from the great Destroyer's pure embraces, Knit in love's mysterious chains

With her, who, daughter to the mountain-king, Yon snowy mansion graces,

Cumara, warrior child, shall spring;

VII. 3.

"Who bright in arms of heavenly proof,
His crest a blazing star, his diamond mail
Colour'd in the rainbow's woof,
The rash invaders fiercely shall assail,
And, on a stately peacock borne, shall rush
Against the dragon of the deep;

Nor shall his thundering mace insatiate sleep,
Till their infernal chief it crush."

VIII. 1.

"The splendid host with solemn state
(Still spoke th' ethereal orator unblamed)

Reason'd high in long debate ;

Till, through my counsel provident, they claim'd
Hapless Cama's potent aid:

At Indra's wish appear'd the soul's inflamer
And, in vernal arms array'd,

Engaged (ah, thoughtless!) in the bold emprise
To tame wide nature's tamer,

And soften Him who shakes the skies.

VIII. 2.

"See now the God, whom all adored,
An ashy heap, the jest of every gale!
Loss by heaven and earth deplored!
For, love extinguish'd, earth and heaven must fail.
Mark how Reti bears his urn,

And toward her widow'd pile with piercing ditty
Points the flames-ah, see it burn!

How ill the funeral with the feast agrees!

Come, Love's pale sister, Pity:

Come, and the lover's wrath appease."

Of tossing billows,

The forms of animated nature lay;

Till o'er the wide abyss, where love

Sat like a nestling dove,

From heaven's dun concave shot a golden ray.

Still brighter and more bright it stream'd,
Then, like a thousand suns, resistless gleam'd;
Whilst on the placid waters blooming,
An opening lotos rose, and smiling spread
The sky perfuming,
His azure skirts and vase of gold,
While o'er his foliage roll'd
Drops, that impart Bhavani's orient bed.

Mother of gods, rich nature's queen,
Thy genial fire emblazed the bursting scene;

Thou badest the softly-kindling flame Pervade this peopled frame,

HYMN TO INDRA.

THE ARGUMENT.

So many allusions to Hindoo mythology occur in the following Ode, that it would be scarce intelligible with

Goddess, around thy radiant throne

The scaly shoals in spangled vesture shone, Some slowly, through green waves advancing, Some swiftly glancing,

As each thy mild mysterious power impell'd: E'en orcs and river dragons felt

Their iron bosoms melt

count, and on all occasions, appears preferable to notes in the margin.

A distinct idea of the god, whom the poem celebrates, may be collected from a passage in the ninth section of the Gità, where the sudden change of measure has an effect similar to that of the finest modulation:

te punyamasadya surendra locam asnanti divyan dividevabhogan,

te tam bhuctwa swergalocam visalam cshine punye mertyalocam visanti.

But straight ascending vapours rare
O'ercanopied thy seat with lucid air,

While, through young Indra's new dominions
Unnumber'd pinions

Mix'd with thy beams a thousand varying dyes,
Of birds or insects, who pursued
Their flying loves, or wooed

Them yielding, and with music fill'd the skies.

And now bedeck'd with sparkling isles
Like rising stars, the watery desert smiles;
Smooth plains by waving forests bounded,
With hillocks rounded,

Send forth a shaggy brood, who, frisking light
In mingled flocks of faithful pairs,

Impart their tender cares;

All animals to love their kind invite.

Nor they alone: those vivid gems,

That dance and glitter on their leafy stems,
Thy voice inspires, thy bounty dresses,
Thy rapture blesses,

From you tall palm, who like a sunborn king,
His proud tiara spreads elate,

To those who throng his gate,

Where purple chieftains vernal tribute bring.

A gale so sweet o'er Ganga breathes,

That in soft smiles her graceful cheek she wreaths.
Mark where her argent brow she raises,
And blushing gazes

On

yon Throws fragrance from his flaunting hair, While with his blooming fair

fresh Cétaca, whose amorous flower

He blends perfume, and multiplies the bower.

Thus, in one vast eternal gyre,
Compact or fluid shapes, instinct with fire,
Lead, as they dance, this gay creation,
Whose mild gradation

Of melting tints illudes the visual ray :
Dense earth in springing herbage lives,
Thence life and nurture gives

To sentient forms, that sink again to clay.

Ye maids and youths on fruitful plains,
Where Lacshmi revels and Bhavani reigns,
Oh, haste! oh, bring your flowery treasures,
To rapid measures

Tripping at eve these hallow'd banks along;
The power, in yon dim shrines adored,
To primal waves restored,

With many a smiling race shall bless your song.

the king of Sura's, feast on the exquisite heavenly food of the gods: they, who have enjoyed this lofty region of Swerga, but whose virtue is exhausted, revisit the habi tation of mortals."

Indra, therefore, or the king of Immortals, corres ponds with one of the ancient Jupiters (for several of that name were worshipped in Europe,) and particularly with Jupiter the conductor, whose attributes are so nobly described by the Platonic philosophers; one of his numerous titles is Dyupeti, or, in the nominative case before certain letters, Dyupetir; which means the Lord of Heaven, and seems a more probable origin of the He truscan word than Juvans Pater; as Diespiter was probably, not the father, but the Lord of day. He may be considered as the Jove of Ennius in this memorable line:

"Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem1where the poet clearly means the firmament, of which Indra is the personification. He is the god of thunder and the five elements, with inferior genii under his com mand; and is conceived to govern the eastern quarter of the world, but to preside, like the genius or Agathodæman of the ancients over the celestial bands, which are stationed on the summit of Meru or the north-pole, where he solaces the gods with nectar and heavenly music; hence, perhaps, the Hindoos, who give evidence, and the magistrates, who hear it, are directed to stand fronting the east or the north.

This imaginary mount is here feigned to have been seen in a vision at Varanasi, very improperly called Ba naris, which takes its name from two rivulets that embrace the city; and the bard, who was favoured with the sight, is supposed to have been Vyasa, surnamed Dwaipayana, or Dwelling in an Island; who, if he really composed the Gità, makes very flattering mention of himself in the tenth chapter. The plant lata, which he describes weaving a net round the mountain Mandara, is transported by a poetical liberty to Sumeru, which the great author of the Mahabharat has richly painted in four beautiful couplets: it is the generic name for a creeper, though represented here as a species, of which many elegant varieties are found in Asia.

The Genii named Cinnarus are the male dancers in Swerga, or the heaven of Indra: and the Apsaras are his dancing-girls, answering to the fairies of the Per sians, and to the damsels called in the Koran hhuru'lûydn, or with antelopes' eyes. For the story of Chitrarat'ha, the chief musician of the Indian paradise, whose painted car was burned by Arjun; and for that of the Chaturdesaretna, or fourteen gems, as they are called, which were produced by churning the ocean: the reader must be referred to Mr. Wilkins's learned annotations on his accurate version of the Bhagavadgità. The fable of the pomegranate flower is borrowed from the popular my. thology of Nepal and Tibet.

In this poem the same form of stanza is repeated with variations, on a principle entirely new in modern lyric poetry, which on some future occasion may, be ex plained.

THE HYMN.

BUT ah! what glories yon blue vault emblaze?
What living meteors from the zenith stream?
Or hath a rapturous dream

Perplex'd the isle-born bard in fiction's maze?
He wakes: he hears; he views no fancied rays;
'Tis Indra mounted on the sun's bright beam;
And round him revels his empyreal train:
How rich their tints! how sweet their strain!

Like shooting stars around his regal seat
A veil of many-colour'd light they weave,
That
eyes unholy would of sense bereave:
Their sparkling hands and lightly-tripping feet
Tired gales and panting clouds behind them leave.
With love of song and sacred beauty smit,
The mystic dance they knit:

Pursuing, circling, whirling, twining, leading,
Now chasing, now receding:

Till the gay pageant from the sky descends
On charm'd Sumeru, who with homage bends.

Of coy repulse and mild reluctance talks;
Mantled in woven gold, with gems enchased,
With emerald hillocks graced,

From whose fresh laps in young fantastic mazes
Soft crystal bounds and blazes

Bathing the lithe convolvulus, that winds
Obsequious, and each flaunting arbour binds.

When sapient Brahma this new world approved,
On woody wings eight primal mountains moved;
But Indra mark'd Sumeru for his own,
And motionless was every stone
Dazzling the moon he rears his golden head:
Nor bards inspired, nor heaven's all-perfect speech,
Less may unhallow'd rhyme his beauties teach,
Or paint the pavement which th' immortals tread;
Nor thought of man his awful height can reach:
Who sees it, maddens; who approaches, dies;
For, with flame-darting eyes,

Around it roll a thousand sleepless dragons;
While from their diamond flagons
The feasting gods exhaustless nectar sip,
Which glows and sparkles on each fragrant lip.

This feast in memory of the churned wave
Great Indra gave, when Amrit first was won
From impious demons, who to Máyà's eyes
Resign'd the prize, and rued the fight begun.

Now, while each ardent Cinnara persuades
The soft eyed Apsara to break the dance,
And leads her loth, yet with love-beaming glance,
To banks of marjoram and Champac shades,
Celestial Genii toward their king advance
(So call'd by men, in heaven Gandharvas named)
For matchless music famed.

Soon, where the bands in lucid rows assemble,
Flutes breathe, and citherns tremble;
Till Chitraratha sings-His painted car,
Yet unconsumed, gleams like an orient star.

Hush'd was every breezy pinion,
Every breeze his fall suspended:
Silence reign'd; whose sole dominion
Soon was raised, but soon was ended.

He sings, how "whilom from the troubled main
The sovereign elephant Airavan sprang:
The breathing shell, that peals of conquest rang;
The parent cow, whom none implores in vain ;
The milk-white steed, the bow with deafening clang
The goddesses of beauty, wealth, and wine:
Flowers, that unfading shine,

Narayan's gem, the moonlight's tender languish ;
Blue venom, source of anguish ;

The solemn leech, slow-moving o'er the strand, A vase of long-sought Amrit in his hand.

To soften human ills dread Siva drank The poisonous flood, that stain'd his azure neck; The rest thy mansions deck,

High Swerga! stored in many a blazing rank.

Thou, god of thunder! satt'st on Meru throned,
Cloud-riding, mountain-piercing, thousand-eyed,
With young Pulomaja, thy blooming bride,
Whilst air and skies thy boundless empire own'd;
Hall, Dyupetir, dismay to Bala's pride!
Or speaks Purander best thy martial fame,
Or Sacra mystic name?

With various praise in odes and hallow'd story
Sweet bards shall hymn thy glory.
Thou, Vasava, from this unmeasured height
Shedd'st pearl, shedd'st odours o'er the sons of
light!"

The genius rested; for his powerful art
Had swell'd the monarch's heart with ardour vain,
That threaten'd rash disdain, and seem'd to lower
On gods of loftier power and ampler reign.

He smiled; and, warbling in a softer mode,
Sang "the red lightning hail, and whelming rain,
O'er Gocul green and Vraja's nymph-loved plain
By indras hurl'd whose altars ne'er had glow'd,
Since infant Crishna ruled the rustic train
Now thrill'd with terror-them the heavenly child
Call'd, and with looks ambrosial smiled,
Then with one finger rear'd the vast Goverdhen,
Beneath whose rocky burden

On pastures dry the maids and herdsmen trod :
The lord of thunder felt a mightier god!"

What furies potent modulation sooths!
E'en the dilated heart of Indra shrinks:
His ruffled brow he smooths,

His lance, half-raised, with listless languor sinks.
A sweeter strain the sage musician chose :
He told, how "Sachi, soft as morning light,
Blithe Sachi, from her lord, Indrani hight,
When through clear skies their car ethereal rose,
Fix'd on a garden trim her wandering sight,
Where gay pomegranates, fresh with early dew,
Vaunted their blossoms new:
[dresses

O pluck (she said) yon gems, which nature To grace my darker tresses.'

In form a shepherd's boy, a god in soul,
He hasten'd, and the bloomy treasure stole.

"The reckless peasant, who those glowing flowers,
Hopeful of rubied fruit, had foster'd long,
Seized, and with cordage strong

Shackled the god who gave him showers.

"Straight from seven winds immortal Genii flew,
Green Varuna, whom foamy waves obey,
Bright Vahni, flaming like the lamp of day,
Cuvera, sought by all, enjoy'd by few,
Marut, who bids the winged breezes play,
Stern Yama, ruthless judge, and Isa cold,
With Nairrit mildly bold:

They with the ruddy flash, that points his thunder,

Rend his vain bands asunder.

Th' exulting god resumes his thousand eyes,
Four arms divine, and robes of changing dyes."

Soft memory retraced the youthful scene;
The thunderer yielded to resistless charms,
Then smiled enamour'd on his blushing queen,
And melted in her arms.

Such was the vision, which-on Varan's breast,
Or Asi pure, with offer'd blossoms fill'd-
Dwaipayan slumbering saw; (thus Nared will'd;
For waking eye such glory never bless'd,
Nor waking ear such music ever thrill'd.
It vanish'd with light sleep: he, rising, praised
The guarded mount high-raised,

And pray'd the thundering power, that sheafy

treasures,

Mild showers, and vernal pleasures,

The labouring youth in mead and vale might cheer,

And cherish'd herdsmen bless th' abundant year.

Thee, darter of the swift blue bolt! he sang;
Sprinkler of genial dews and fruitful rains
O'er hills and thirsty plains!

When through the waves of war thy charger

sprang,

Each rock rebellow'd and each forest rang, Till vanquish'd Asurs felt avenging pains. Send o'er their seats the snake that never dies, But waft the virtuous to thy skies!"