I deemed some savage wild-beast near,--my erring shaft thy son had
killed.
A feeble groan I heard, his breast was pierced by that dire arrow keen:
All trembling to the spot I pressed, lo there thy hermit boy was seen.
Flew to the sound my arrow, meant the wandering elephant to slay,
Toward the river brink it went,--and there thy son expiring lay.
The fatal shaft when forth I drew, to heaven his parting spirit soared,
Dying he only thought of you, long, long, your lonely lot deplored.
Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sage!
Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage!'
He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless;
Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did
address.
'Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to
rehearse,
Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.
If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt,
The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.
Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft
accursed,
In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.
But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest
still,
O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.
Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay,
Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the
stay.
On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again,
(So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain
His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown,