But thoult come again,

  When the night returns!”—­then kiss on kiss.

Then her wrath the mother cannot hold,

But unfastens straight the lock with ease
“In this house are girls become so bold,

  As to seek e’en strangers’ lusts to please?”

      By her lamp’s clear glow

      Looks she in,—­and oh!

  Sight of horror!—­’tis her child she sees.

Fain the youth would, in his first alarm,

With the veil that o’er her had been spread,
With the carpet, shield his love from harm;

  But she casts them from her, void of dread,

      And with spirit’s strength,

      In its spectre length,

  Lifts her figure slowly from the bed.

“Mother! mother!”—­Thus her wan lips say: 

“May not I one night of rapture share? 
From the warm couch am I chased away?

  Do I waken only to despair?

      It contents not thee

      To have driven me

  An untimely shroud of death to wear?

“But from out my coffin’s prison-bounds

By a wond’rous fate I’m forced to rove,
While the blessings and the chaunting sounds

  That your priests delight in, useless prove.

      Water, salt, are vain

      Fervent youth to chain,

  Ah, e’en Earth can never cool down love!

“When that infant vow of love was spoken,

Venus’ radiant temple smiled on both. 
Mother! thou that promise since hast broken,

  Fetter’d by a strange, deceitful oath.

      Gods, though, hearken ne’er,

      Should a mother swear

  To deny her daughter’s plighted troth.

From my grave to wander I am forc’d,

Still to seek The Good’s long-sever’d link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,

  And the life-blood of his heart to drink;

      When his race is run,

      I must hasten on,

  And the young must ’neath my vengeance sink,

“Beauteous youth! no longer mayst thou live;

Here must shrivel up thy form so fair;
Did not I to thee a token give,

  Taking in return this lock of hair?

      View it to thy sorrow!

      Grey thoult be to-morrow,

  Only to grow brown again when there.

“Mother, to this final prayer give ear!

Let a funeral pile be straightway dress’d; Open then my cell so sad and drear,

  That the flames may give the lovers rest!

      When ascends the fire

      From the glowing pyre,

  To the gods of old we’ll hasten, blest.”

1797.
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The god and the bayadere.

An Indian legend.

[This very fine Ballad was also first given in the Horen.] (MAHADEVA is one of the numerous names of Seeva, the destroyer,—­ the great god of the Brahmins.)