Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/49

 CHILDHOOD., 7.: your compassion regard me as your servant, and dissembling no longer, be kind and affectionate. I have no confidence in the strength of my own wisdom, and therefore I supplicate you all. I would narrate the great deeds of Raghu- pati, but my ability is little and his acts unfatbhomable. I am not conscious of any special qualification or capacity ; my intellect in short is beggarly, while my ambition is imperial; I am thirsting for nectar, when not even skim-milk is to be had. Good people all pardon my presumption and listen to my childish bab- bling, as a father and mother delight to hear the lisping prattle of their little one. Perverse and malignant fools may laugh, who pick out faults in others where- with to adorn themselves. Every one is pleased with his own rhymes, whether they be pungent or insipid; but those who praise another's voice are good men, of whom there are few in the world ; there are mauy enough like the rivers, which on getting a rainfall swell out a flood of their own, but barely one like the generous ocean, which swells on beholding the fulness of the moon. Dohá 12. My lot is low, my purpose high ; but I am confident of one thing, that the good will be gratified to hear me, though fools may laugh. Chaupái. The laughter of fools will be grateful to me: the crow calls the koil's voice harsh. The goose ridicules the swan, and the frog the chátak ; so the low and vile abuse pure verse. As they have no taste for poetry nor love for Ráma, I am glad that they should laugh. If my homely speech and poor wit are fit subjects for laughter, let them laugh; it is no fault of mine. If they have no understand- ing of true devotion to the Lord, the tale will seem insipid enough : but to the true and orthodox worshippers of Hari and Hara the story of Raghubar will be sweet as honey. The singer's devotion to Ráma will by itself be sufficient em- bellishment to make the good hear and praise the melody. Though no poet, nor clever, nor accomplished; though unskilled in every art and seience: though all the elegant devices of letters and rhetoric, the countless variations of metre, the infinite divisions of sentiment and style, and all the defects and excellencies of verse, and the gift to distinguish between them are unknown to me, I declare and record it on a fair white sheet- Dohá 13. That though my style has not a single charm of its own, it has a charm known throughout the world, which men of discernment will ponder as they read-