Again he saw, beyond that silent vale,
One frail and old, without a rich man's gate
Laid down to die beneath a peepul-tree,
And parched with thirst and pierced with sudden pain,
A root his pillow and the earth his bed;
Alone he met the King of terrors there;
Whose wasting body, cumbering now the ground,
Chandalas cast upon the passing stream
To float and fester in the fiery sun,
Till whirled by eddies, caught by roots, it lay
A prey for vultures and for fishes food.

That selfsame day a dart of deadly pain
Shot through that rich man's hard, unfeeling heart,
That laid him low, beyond the power to save,
E'en while his servants cast without his gates
That poor old man, who came to beg him spare
His roof-tree, where his fathers all had died,
His hearth, the shrine of all his inmost joys,
His little home, to every heart so dear;
And in due season tongues of hissing flames
That rich man's robes like snowflakes whirled in air,
And curled his crackling skin, consumed his flesh,
And sucked the marrow from his whitened bones.

But here these two their places seem to change.
That rich man's houses, lands, and flocks and herds,
His servants, rich apparel, stores of gold,
And all he loved and lived for left behind,