Gentle-bosomed, kindly hearted, erst they wiped each other's eye,
Now by common sorrow laden none for sister heaved a sigh!
With this troop of wailing women, deep in woe, disconsolate,
Slow the monarch of the Kurus passed Hastina's outer gate,
Men from stall and loom and anvil, men of every guild and trade,
Left the city with the monarch, through the open country strayed,
And a universal sorrow filled the air and answering sky,
As when ends the mortal's Yuga and the end of world is nigh!
II
Gandhari's Lament for the Slain
Stainless Queen and stainless woman, ever righteous ever good,
Stately in her mighty sorrow on the field Gandhari stood!
Strewn with skulls and clotted tresses, darkened by the stream of gore,
With the limbs of countless warriors was the red field covered o'er,
Elephants and steeds of battle, car-borne chiefs untimely slain,
Headless trunks and heads dissevered fill the red and ghastly plain!
And the long-drawn howl of jackals o'er the scene of carnage rings,
And the vulture and the raven flap their dark and loathsome wings,