and the black cloud, painted with twilight red, is bidden to serve as a robe for the god, instead of the bloody elephant hide which he commonly wears in his wild dance.

Clothing thyself in twilight's rose-red glory,
Embrace the dancing Shiva's tree-like arm;
He will prefer thee to his mantle gory
And spare his grateful goddess-bride's alarm,
Whose eager gaze will manifest no fear of harm.


XXXVII

After one night of repose in the city

Where women steal to rendezvous by night
Through darkness that a needle might divide,
Show them the road with lightning-flashes bright
As golden streaks upon the touchstone's side—
But rain and thunder not, lest they be terrified.


XXXVIII

On some rich balcony where sleep the doves,
Through the dark night with thy beloved stay,
The lightning weary with the sport she loves;
But with the sunrise journey on thy way—
For they that labour for a friend do not delay.


XXXIX

The gallant dries his mistress' tears that stream
When he returns at dawn to her embrace—
Prevent thou not the sun's bright-fingered beam
That wipes the tear-dew from the lotus' face;
His anger else were great, and great were thy disgrace.


XL

the cloud is besought to travel to Deep River.

Thy winsome shadow-soul will surely find
An entrance in Deep River's current bright,
As thoughts find entrance in a placid mind;
Then let no rudeness of thine own affright
The darting fish that seem her glances lotus-white.


XLI

But steal her sombre veil of mist away,
Although her reeds seem hands that clutch the dress
To hide her charms; thou hast no time to stay,
Yet who that once has known a dear caress
Could bear to leave a woman's unveiled loveliness?


XLII

Thence to Holy Peak,

The breeze 'neath which the breathing acre grants
New odours, and the forest figs hang sleek,
With pleasant whistlings drunk by elephants
Through long and hollow trunks, will gently seek
To waft thee onward fragrantly to Holy Peak.


XLIII

the dwelling-place of Skanda, god of war, the child of Shiva and Gauri, concerning whose birth more than one quaint tale is told.

There change thy form; become a cloud of flowers
With heavenly moisture wet, and pay the meed
Of praise to Skanda with thy blossom showers;
That sun-outshining god is Shiva's seed,
Fire-born to save the heavenly hosts in direst need.


XLIV

God Skanda's peacock—he whose eyeballs shine
By Shiva's moon, whose flashing fallen plume
The god's fond mother wears, a gleaming line
Over her ear beside the lotus bloom—
Will dance to thunders echoing in the caverns' room.


XLV