And the flagstaff fell dissevered on the crushed and broken car,
As from azure sky of midnight falls the meteor's flaming star!
Not by young Sikhandin's arrows Bhishma's palm-tree standard fell,
Not Sikhandin's feeble lances did the peerless Bhishma quell,
True to oath the bleeding chieftan turned his darkening face away,
Turned and fell; the sun declining marked the closing of the day.
Ended thus the fatal battle, truce came with the close of day,
Kurus and the silent Pandavs went where Bhishma dying lay,
Arjun wept as for a father weeps a sad and sorrowing son,
Good Yudhishthir cursed the morning Kuru-kshetra's war begun,
Stood Duryodhan and his brothers mantled in the gloom of grief,
Foes like loving brothers sorrowed round the great the dying chief!
Arjun's keen and pointed arrows made the hero's dying bed,
And in soft and gentle accents to Duryodhan thus he said:
“List unto my words, Duryodhan, uttered with my latest breath,
List to Bhishma's dying counsel and revere the voice of death!
End this dread and deathful battle if thy stony heart can grieve,
Save the chieftains doomed to slaughter, bid the fated nations live!
Grant his kingdom to Yudhishthir, righteous man beloved of Heaven,
Keep thy own Hastina's regions, be the hapless past forgiven!”