{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry137.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry137.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry137.htm","text":"As thus Sumantra, best of peers,\n Told his sad tale with many tears,\n The monarch cried, 'I pray thee, tell\n At length again what there befell.'\n Sumantra, at the king's behest,\n Striving with sobs he scarce repressed,\n His trembling voice at last controlled,\n And thus his further tidings told:\n 'Their locks in votive coils they wound,\n Their coats of bark upon them bound,\n To Gang\u00e1's farther shore they went,\n Thence to Pray\u00e1g their steps were bent.\n I saw that Lakshman walked ahead\n To guard the path the two should tread.\n So far I saw, no more could learn,\n Forced by the hero to return.\n Retracing slow my homeward course,\n Scarce could I move each stubborn horse:\n Shedding hot tears of grief he stood\n When R\u00e1ma turned him to the wood.\u00a01\n As the two princes parted thence\n I raised my hands in reverence,\n Mounted my ready car, and bore\n The grief that stung me to the core.\n With Guha all that day I stayed,\n Still by the earnest hope delayed\n That R\u00e1ma, ere the time should end,\n Some message from the wood might send.\n Thy realms, great Monarch, mourn the blow,\n And sympathize with R\u00e1ma's woe.\n \n \n Each withering tree hangs low his head,\n And shoot, and bud, and flower are dead.\n Dried are the floods that wont to fill\n The lake, the river, and the rill.\n Drear is each grove and garden now,\n Dry every blossom on the bough.\n Each beast is still, no serpents crawl:\n A lethargy of woe on all.\n The very wood is silent: crushed\n With grief for R\u00e1ma, all is hushed.\n Fair blossoms from the water born,\n Gay garlands that the earth adorn,\n And every fruit that gleams like gold,\n Have lost the scent that charmed of old.\n Empty is every grove I see,\n Or birds sit pensive on the tree.\n Where'er I look, its beauty o'er,\n The pleasance charms not as before.\n I drove through fair Ayodhy\u00e1's street:\n None flew with joy the car to meet.\n They saw that R\u00e1ma was not there,\n And turned them sighing in despair.\n The people in the royal way\n Wept tears of bitter grief, when they\n Beheld me coming, from afar,\n No R\u00e1ma with me in the car.\n From palace roof and turret high\n Each woman bent her eager eye;\n She looked for R\u00e1ma, but in vain;\n Gazed on the car and shrieked for pain.\n Their long clear eyes with sorrow drowned\n They, when this common grief was found,\n Looked each on other, friend and foe,\n In sympathy of levelling woe:\n No shade of difference between\n Foe, friend, or neutral, there was seen.\n Without a joy, her bosom rent\n With grief for R\u00e1ma's banishment,\n Ayodhy\u00e1 like the queen appears\n Who mourns her son with many tears.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 He ended: and the king, distressed.\n With sobbing voice that lord addressed:\n 'Ah me, by false Kaikey\u00ed led,\n Of evil race, to evil bred,\n I took no counsel of the sage,\n Nor sought advice from skill and age,\n I asked no lord his aid to lend,\n I called no citizen or friend.\n Rash was my deed, bereft of sense\n Slave to a woman's influence.\n Surely, my lord, a woe so great\n Palls on us by the will of Fate;\n It lays the house of Raghu low,\n For Destiny will have it so.\n I pray thee, if I e'er have done\n An act to please thee, yea, but one,\n Fly, fly, and R\u00e1ma homeward lead:\n My life, departing, counsels speed.\n Fly, ere the power to bid I lack,\n Fly to the wood: bring R\u00e1ma back.\n I cannot live for even one\n Short hour bereaved of my son.\n But ah, the prince, whose arms are strong,\n Has journeyed far: the way is long:\n Me, me upon the chariot place,\n And let me look on R\u00e1ma's face.\n Ah me, my son, mine eldest-born,\n Where roams he in the wood forlorn,\n The wielder of the mighty bow,\n Whose shoulders like the lion's show?\n O, ere the light of life be dim,\n Take me to S\u00edt\u00e1 and to him.\n O R\u00e1ma, Lakshman, and O thou\n Dear S\u00edt\u00e1, constant to thy vow,\n Beloved ones, you cannot know\n That I am dying of my woe.'\n \u00a0 The king to bitter grief a prey,\n That drove each wandering sense away,\n Sunk in affliction's sea. too wide\n To traverse, in his anguish cried:\n 'Hard, hard to pass, my Queen, this sea\n Of sorrow raging over me:\n No R\u00e1ma near to soothe mine eye,\n Plunged in its lowest deeps I lie.\n Sorrow for R\u00e1ma swells the tide,\n And S\u00edt\u00e1's absence makes it wide:\n My tears its foamy flood distain,\n Made billowy by my sighs of pain:\n My cries its roar, the arms I throw\n About me are the fish below,\n Kaikey\u00ed is the fire that feeds\n Beneath: my hair the tangled weeds:\n Its source the tears for R\u00e1ma shed:\n The hump-back's words its monsters dread:\n The boon I gave the wretch its shore,\n Till R\u00e1ma's banishment be o'er. \u00a01\n \u00a0\u00a0 Ah me, that I should long to set\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My eager eyes to-day\n \u00a0\u00a0 On Raghu's son, and he be yet\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With Lakshman far away!'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus he of lofty glory wailed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And sank upon the bed.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Beneath the woe his spirit failed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And all his senses fled.\n \n \n \n \n \n164:1 'So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:\nAncient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man.' GORRESIO.","title":"Book II: Canto LIX: Das'aratha's Lament.","type":"page"}