Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Victim
By Bryan Waller Procter (1787–1874)H
Roars to the jungles, and broad billows scatters
Upon the burning shores of Hindostan,
Rose a great temple,—in no puny age
Fashioned, but built, like Babel, ’gainst the skies.
Based on a rock, and cut in granite stone,
Its pillars and Titanian capitals
Heaved their enormous bulks, till each o’erlooked
Wide India. To some God, whose name is lost,
This wilderness of stone was dedicate.
Millions of quick-eyed slaves, with dusky brows,
All wreathed in white, came here in the old time,
And on the prostrate marble bent, and swore
Allegiance to A Name! Then, amidst storms
Of blood and tears, rose Siva, at whose feet
Widows were slain; maidens, whose hearts were warm
With summer love, old age and infancy,
Shrank in her blazing altars, and left gold
Unto the temple’s saints for priestly prayers.
Then prayed the priests; and then, while darkness lay
On the dull world, the bearded Brahmins did
Mysterious rites, and their nocturnal songs
Went sounding through the long stone-carved aisles
Of Elephanta to brute Jaggernaut.
And soon this superstition far outspread:
From Oude to the Deccan,—over black Bahar,—
From the Arab Seas, across to rank Bengal,
It sprang and flourished; and wherever else
Base human folly crouched to baser guile,
It reigned and made its martyrs. There is one
Far famous in its stories, from whose life,
And from whose death, and from whose after fame,
Some learn a lesson. When the droughts are great,
And their squat idols sit unmoved, the priests
Call on the saintly Muttra. To please him
They burn a virgin, and scream loose love-songs,
And curse the Rajah, Dhur-Singh, long since dead.
He, while he lived, wise prince! did good towards all:
He lived, untouched by grief, for many years,
And when he died, left children virtuous,
A happy land, which owned his rule was just,
And slumbered in the Indian’s Paradise.