XXIV

I praise now the powerful company of these ever-young Maruts, who drive violently along with quick horses; aye, the sovereigns are lords of Amrita the immortal.  The terrible company, the powerful, adorned with quoits on their hands, given to roaring, potent, dispensing treasures, they who are beneficent, infinite in greatness, praise, O poet, these men of great wealth!  May your water-carriers come here to-day, all the Maruts who stir up the rain.  That fire which has been lighted for you, O Maruts, accept it, O young singers!  O worshipful Maruts, you create for man an active king, fashioned by Vibhvan; from you comes the man who can fight with his fist, and is quick with his arm, from you the man with good horses and valiant heroes.  Like the spokes of a wheel, no one is last, like the days they are born on and on, not deficient in might.  The very high sons of Prisni are full of fury, the Maruts cling firmly to their own will.  When you have come forth with your speckled deer as horses on strong-fellied chariots, O Maruts, the waters gush, the forests go asunder;—­let Dyu roar down, the bull of the Dawn.  At their approach, even the earth opened wide, and they placed their own strength as a husband the germ.  Indeed they have harnessed the winds as horses to the yoke, and the men of Rudra have changed their sweat into rain.  Hark, O heroes, O Maruts!  Be gracious to us!  You who are of great bounty, immortal, righteous, truly listening to us, poets, young, dwelling on mighty mountains, and grown mighty.

XXV

They truly tried to make you grant them welfare.  Do thou sing praises to Heaven, I offer sacrifice to the Earth.  The Maruts wash their horses and race to the air, they soften their splendor by waving mists.  The earth trembles with fear from their onset.  She sways like a full ship, that goes rolling.  The heroes who appear on their marches, visible from afar, strive together within the great sacrificial assembly.  Your horn is exalted for glory, as the horns of cows; your eye is like the sun, when the mist is scattered.  Like strong racers, you are beautiful, O heroes, you think of glory, like manly youths.  Who could reach, O Maruts, the great wise thoughts, who the great manly deeds of you, great ones?  You shake the earth like a speck of dust, when you are carried forth for granting welfare.  These kinsmen are like red horses, like heroes eager for battle, and they have rushed forward to fight.  They are like well-grown manly youths, and the men have grown strong, with streams of rain they dim the eye of the sun.  At their outbreak there is none among them who is the eldest, or the youngest, or the middle:  they have grown by their own might, these sons of Prisni, noble by birth, the boys of Dyaus; come hither to us!

Those who like birds flew with strength in rows from the ridge of the mighty heaven to its ends, their horses shook the springs of the mountain cloud, so that people on both sides knew it.  May Dyaus Aditi roar for our feast, may the dew-lighted Dawns come striving together; these, the Maruts, O poet, the sons of Rudra, have shaken the heavenly bucket cloud, when they had been praised.