Page:Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan.djvu/58

22 Down the deep glade with perfume rife
 * From buds that to the dews expand,

The husband and the faithful wife
 * Pass to dense jungle,—hand in hand.

Satyavan bears beside his saw
 * A forkèd stick to pluck the fruit,

His wife, the basket lined with straw;
 * He talks, but she is almost mute,

And very pale. The minutes pass;
 * The basket has no further space,

Now on the fruits they flowers amass
 * That with their red flush all the place

While twilight lingers; then for wood
 * He saws the branches of the trees,

The noise, heard in the solitude.
 * Grates on its soft, low harmonies.

And all the while one dreadful thought
 * Haunted Savitri's anxious mind,

Which would have fain its stress forgot;
 * It came as chainless as the wind,

Oft and again: thus on the spot
 * Marked with his heart-blood oft comes back

The murdered man, to see the clot!
 * Death's final blow,—the fatal wrack