Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sagel

Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage I '

He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless ;

Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did

address.
' Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to rehearse,
Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.
If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt.
The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.
Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft

accursed.
In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.
But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest still,
O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.
Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay.
Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the stay.
On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again,
(So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain
His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown.
Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'
Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair ;
His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered there.
Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage eoldly throvm,
But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.
