{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry192.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry192.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry192.htm","text":"Deep, pleasant was the chariot's sound\n As royal Bharat, far renowned,\n Whirled by his mettled coursers fast\n Within Ayodhy\u00e1's city passed.\n There dark and drear was every home\n Where cats and owls had space to roam,\n As when the shades of midnight fall\n With blackest gloom, and cover all:\n As Rohin\u00ed, dear spouse of him\n Whom Rahu \u00a01 hates, grows faint and dim,\n When, as she shines on high alone\n The demon's shade is o'er her thrown:\n As burnt by summer's heat a rill\n Scarce trickling from her parent hill,\n With dying fish in pools half dried,\n And fainting birds upon her side:\n As sacrificial flames arise\n When holy oil their food supplies,\n But when no more the fire is fed\n Sink lustreless and cold and dead:\n Like some brave host that filled the plain,\n With harness rent and captains slain,\n When warrior, elephant, and steed\n Mingled in wild confusion bleed:\n As when, all spent her store of worth,\n Rocks from her base the loosened earth:\n Like a sad fallen star no more\n Wearing the lovely light it wore:\n So mournful in her lost estate\n Was that sad town disconsolate.\n Then car-borne Bharat, good and brave,\n Thus spake to him the steeds who drave:\n 'Why are Ayodhy\u00e1's streets so mute!\n Where is the voice of lyre and lute?\n Why sounds not, as of old, to-day\n The music of the minstrel's lay?\n \n \n \n Where are the wreaths they used to twine?\n Where are the blossoms and the wine?\n Where is the cool refreshing scent\n Of sandal dust with aloe blent?\n The elephant's impatient roar,\n The din of cars, I hear no more:\n No more the horse's pleasant neigh\n Rings out to meet me on my way.\n Ayodhy\u00e1's youths, since R\u00e1ma's flight,\n Have lost their relish for delight:\n Her men roam forth no more, nor care\n Bright garlands round their necks to wear.\n All grieve for banished R\u00e1ma: feast,\n And revelry and song have ceased:\n Like a black night when floods pour down,\n So dark and gloomy is the town.\n When will he come to make them gay\n Like some auspicious holiday?\n When will my brother, like a cloud\n At summer's close, make glad the crowd?'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then through the streets the hero rode,\n And passed within his sire's abode,\n Like some deserted lion's den,\n Forsaken by the lord of men.\n Then to the inner bowers he came,\n Once happy home of many a dame,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Now gloomy, sad, and drear,\n Dark as of old that sunless day\n When wept the Gods in wild dismay;\u00a01\n \u00a0\u00a0 There poured he many a tear.\n \n \n \n \n \n223:1 The spouse of Rohini is the Moon: Rahu is the demon who causes eclipses.","title":"Book II: Canto CXIV.: Bharat's Departure.","type":"page"}