Now Veeshnoo turned round to a capering varlet,

Array’d in blue and white and scarlet,

And cried, “Oh! brown of slipper as of hat!

Lend me, Harlequin, thy bat!”

He seized the wooden sword, and smote the earth;

When lo! upstarting into birth

A fabric, gorgeous to behold,

Outshone in elegance the old,

And Veeshnoo saw, and cried, “Hail, playhouse mine!”

Then, bending his head, to Surya he said: