| |
| HIGH in the parching sun, where Ganges wild | |
| 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. | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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: | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| A happy land, which owned his rule was just, | |
| And slumbered in the Indian’s Paradise. | |
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