{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry471.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry471.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry471.htm","text":"Sugr\u00edva spake in words like these:\n 'Now, V\u00e1nar lords, the occasion seize.\n For now, of sons and brothers reft,\n To R\u00e1van little hope is left:\n And if our host his gates assail\n His weak defence will surely fail.'\n \n \n At dead of night the V\u00e1nar bands\n Rushed on with torches in their hands.\n Scared by the coming of the host\n Each giant warder left his post.\n Where'er the V\u00e1nar legions came\n Their way was marked with hostile flame\n That spread in fury to devour\n Palace and temple, gate and tower.\n Down came the walls and porches, down\n Came stately piles that graced the town.\n In many a house the fire was red,\n On sandal wood and aloe fed.\n And scorching flames in billows rolled\n O'er diamonds and pearls and gold.\n On cloth of wool, on silk brocade,\n On linen robes their fury preyed.\n Wheels, poles and yokes were burned, and all\n The coursers' harness in the stall;\n And elephants' and chariots' gear,\n The sword, the buckler, and the spear.\n Scared by the crash of falling beams,\n Mid lamentations, groans and screams\n \n \n Forth rushed the giants through the flames\n And with them dragged bewildered dames,\n Each, with o'erwhelming terror wild,\n Still clamping to her breast a child.\n The swift fire from a cloud of smoke\n Through many a gilded lattice broke,\n And, melting pearl and coral, rose\n O'er balconies and porticoes.\n The startled crane and peacock screamed\n As with strange light the courtyard gleamed,\n And fierce unusual glare was thrown.\n Cm shrinking wood and heated stone.\n From burning stall and stable freed\n Rushed frantic elephant and steed.\n And goaded by the driving blaze\n Fled wildly tbrough the crowded ways.\n As earth with fervent heat will glow\n When comes her final overthrow;\n From gate to gate, from court to spire\n Proud Lank\u00e1 was one blaze of fire,\n And every headland, rock and bay\n Shone bright a hundred leagues away.\n Forth, blinded by the heat and flame\n Ran countless giants huge of frame;\n And, mustering for fierce attack,\n The V\u00e1nars charged to drive them back,\n While shout and scream and roar and cry\n Re\u00ebchoed through the earth and sky.\n There Rama stood with stength renewed,\n And ever, as the foe he viewed,\n Shaking the distant regions rang\n His mighty bow's tremendous clang.\n Then through the gates Nikummbha hied,\n And Kumbha by his brother's side,\n Sent forth--the bravest and the best--\n To battle by the king's behest.\n There fought the chiefs in open field,\n And Angad fell and Dwivid reeled.\n Sugr\u00edva saw: by rage impelled\n He crushed the bow which Kumbha held.\n About his foe Sugr\u00edva wound\n His arms, and, heaving from the ground\n The giant hurled him o'er the bank;\n And deep beneath the sea he sank.\n Like mandar hill with furious swell\n Up leapt the waters where he fell.\n Again he rose: he sprang to land\n And raised on high his threatening hand:\n Full on Sugr\u00edva's chest it came\n And shook the V\u00e1nar's massy frame,\n But on the wounded bone he broke\n His wrist--so furious was the stroke.\n With force that naught could stay or check,\n Sugr\u00edva smote him neath the neck.\n The fierce blow crashed through flesh and bone\n And Kumbha lay in death o'erthrown.\n Nikumbha saw his brother die,\n And red with fury flashed his eye.\n He dashed with mighty sway and swing\n \n \n His axe against the V\u00e1nar king;\n But shattered on that living rock\n It split in fragments at the shock.\n Sugr\u00edva, rising to the blow,\n Raised his huge hand and smote his foe.\n And in the dust the giant lay\n Gasping in blood his soul away. \u00a01","title":"BOOK VI: Canto LXXV.: The Night Attack.","type":"page"}