Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'
Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair;
His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered
there.
Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage coldly thrown,
But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.
The mother as she lay and groaned, addressed her boy with quivering
tongue,
And like a heifer sadly moaned, just plundered of her new-dropped young:

"'Was not thy mother once, my son, than life itself more dear to thee?
Why the long way thou hast begun, without one gentle word to me?
One last embrace, and then, beloved, upon thy lonely journey go!
Alas! with anger art thou moved, that not a word thou wilt bestow?'

"The miserable father now with gentle touch each cold limb pressed,
And to the dead his words of woe, as to his living son addressed:
'I too, my son, am I not here?--thy sire with thy sad mother stands;
Awake, arise, my child, draw near, and clasp each neck with loving
hands.
Who now, 'neath the dark wood by night, a pious reader shall be heard?
Whose honeyed voice my ear delight with th' holy Veda's living word?
The evening prayer, th' ablution done, the fire adored with worship
meet,
Who now shall soothe like thee, my son, with fondling hand, my aged
feet?
And who the herb, the wholesome root, or wild fruit from the wood shall
bring?
To us the blind, the destitute, with helpless hunger perishing?
Thy blind old mother, heaven-resigned, within our hermit-dwelling lone,