Then woke his wife, and in firm tones thus asked,
"Who is this youth that has defiled my bed?
Speak ere I strike you both." The wond'ring wife
The dagger and the stranger saw and cried--
"Kill me alone, but spare my only son."
"Thy only son!" he said; "now wake him up,
And let us all adore our Maker first,
Who saved us from my frenzy, which in one
Short moment would have shattered all our bliss."




_THE STORY OF THE ROYAL HUNTRESS_.


It was a land of plenty and of wealth;
There God's indulgent hand made for a race
Supremely blest a paradise on earth.
A land of virtue, truth, and charity,
Where nature's choicest treasures man enjoyed
With little toil, where youth respected age,
Where each his neighbour's wife his sister deemed,
Where side by side the tiger and the lamb
The water drank, and sported oft in mirth.
A land where each man deemed him highly blest
When he relieved the miseries of the poor,
When to his roof the wearied traveller came
To share his proffered bounty with good cheer.
Such was the far-famed land of Panchala.