The melancholy Asia mourns afar,

Drooping in sorrow ’neath the Plague’s red star.

Beneath her palms the giant mother see,

Her turret-girded brow upon her knee!

The elephantine tusk, that stays her hand,

Lies unregarded in the yellow sand.

Not thus she mourned, when Iran’s king forlorn

Fled pale and vanquished towards the realms of morn.

The mystic Brahmin, roofed by groves sublime,

Lies grovelling before his pagod shrine;