{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry261.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry261.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry261.htm","text":"Thus for his wife in vain he sought:\n Then, his sad soul with pain distraught,\n The hero of the lotus eyes\n Filled all the air with frantic cries.\n O'erpowered by love's strong influence, he\n His absent wife still seemed to see,\n And thus with accents weak and faint\n Renewed with tears his wild complaint:\n 'Thou,fairer than their bloom, my spouse,\n Art hidden by As'oka boughs.\n Those blooms have power to banish care,\n But now they drive me to despair.\n Thine arms are like the plantain's stem:\n Why let the plantain cover them?\n Thou art not hidden, love; thy feet\n betray thee in thy dark retreat.\n Thou runnest in thy girlish sport\n To flowery trees, thy dear resort.\n But cease, O cease, my love, I pray,\n To vex me with thy cruel play.\n Such mockery in a holy spot\n Where hermits dwell beseems thee not.\n Ah, now I see thy fickle mind\n To scornful mood too much inclined,\n Come, large-eyed beauty. I implore;\n Lone is the cot so dear before.\n \u00a0\u00a0 No, she is slain by giants; they\n Have stolen or devoured their prey,\n Or surely at my mournful cry\n My darling to her lord would fly.\n O Lakshman, see those troops of deer:\n In each sad eye there gleams a tear.\n Those looks of woe too clearly say\n My consort is the giants' prey.\n O noblest, fairest of the fair,\n Where art thou. best of women, where?\n This day will dark Kaikey\u00ed find\n Fresh triumph for her evil mind,\n When I, who with my S\u00edt\u00e1 came\n Return alone, without my dame.\n But ne'er can I return to see\n Those chambers where my queen should be\n And hear the scornful people speak\n \n \n Of R\u00e1ma as a coward weak.\n For mine will be the coward's shame\n Who let the foeman steal his dame.\n How can I seek my home, or brook\n Upon Videha's king to look?\n How listen, when he bids me tell,\n My wanderings o'er, that all is well?\n He, when I meet his eager view,\n Will mark that S\u00edt\u00e1 comes not too,\n And when he hears the mournful tale\n His wildered sense will reel and fail.\n 'O Das'aratha.' will he cry,\n 'Blest in thy mansion in the sky!'\n Ne'er to that town my steps shall bend,\n That town which Bharat's arms defend,\n For e'en the blessed homes above\n Would seem a waste without my love.\n Leave me, my brother, here, I pray;\n To fair Ayodhy\u00e1 bend thy way.\n Without my love I cannot bear\n To live one hour in blank despair.\n Round Bharat's neck thy fond arms twine,\n And greet him with these words of mine:\n 'Dear brother, still the power retain,\n And o'er the land as monarch reign.'\n With salutation next incline\n Before thy mother, his, and mine.\n Still, brother, to my words attend,\n And with all care each dame befriend.\n To my dear mother's ear relate\n My mournful tale and S\u00edt\u00e1's fate.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus R\u00e1ma gave his sorrow vent,\n And from a heart which anguish rent,\n Mourned for his wife in loud lament,-\n \u00a0\u00a0 Her of the glorious hair,\n From Lakshman's cheek the colour fled,\n And o'er his heart came sudden dread,\n Sick, faint, and sore disquieted\n \u00a0\u00a0 By woe too great to bear.","title":"BOOK III: Canto LXIII.: R\u00e1ma's Lament.","type":"page"}