Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/78

 marudam trees; the mango has its branches decorated with tender leaves; the smoke-like cloud creeps along its boughs filled with bunches of flowers; the cuckoos enjoy the beauty of the scene and sing.'

'The roots of the bamboo are interwinedintertwined [sic] with each other; when the winds blow upon them they sound like the sigh of the elephant tied to its post. Looking at the moon which crept over the hill standing in a forest of bamboos, I said to myself, another moon (his mistress with a face bright as a moon) with teeth sharp as thorns and a fair face adorned by a sweet-smelling mark (tilakam) is standing on the hills, on whose rocks grow trees whose bare branches have shed their leaves in the strong gale, did I not?'

'The konṛai flowers spread on a pit cut in a stone resemble a box of the wealthy man, filled with gold coins and kept open.' 'The cool flowers of the tāḻai (screw-pine), which has bent thorns, when scattered by the winds, run like the pearls of a garland when the thread is snapped, on the white sands of the sea-shore.'

'The garden was crowded with tall bamboos from which thorns hang and on which rest the cuckoos, which have bent claws and thin blue feathers, after drinking the mango juice, sweet as if milk were mixed with it, and after that, the sour juice of the nelli fruit.'

'The mullai, jasmine, which flowers in places adjoining a stream looks like the teeth of a cat laughing.'