Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/49

Rh When wearied with long vigils kept, I laid me down and thought I slept: Methought there came a warrior-maid, With blood-stain'd brow and sheathless blade; Dark was her hue, as darkest cloud, Which comes the Moon's fair face to shroud, And 'round her waist a hideous zone Of hands with charnal lightnings shone, And long the garland which she wore Of heads all bath'd in streaming gore: How fierce the eyes by Death unseal'd. And blasting gleams which they reveal'd. I shudder'd—tho' I knew 'twas she, The awful, ruthless Deity, On whose dread altar like a flood, There flows for aye her victim's blood! I shudder'd—for, methought, she came, With eyes of bright consuming flame, Daughter,'—she said,—'farewell!—I go: The time is come,—it must be so: Leave thee and thine I will to-night,'— Then vanish'd like a flash of light!

Again I dreamt:—I saw a pyre Blaze high with fiercely gleaming fire; And one there came,—a warrior he,— Tho' faint, yet bold,—undauntedly, And plung'd—oh! God! into the flame Which like a hungry monster rose, And circl'd round his quivering frame, A hideous curtain waving close! I shriek'd—but, tell me why that start. And paler brow and heaving heart? Oh! tell me, hath my royal sire Forgot his deep and ruthless ire, And come and crush'd our foe-men dire?"