“Oh thanks, good priest!  Observance due
      And greetings!  May thy name be blest! 
    I came on business, but I knew,
      Here might be had both food and rest
    Without a charge; for all the poor
      Ten miles around thy sacred shrine
    Know that thou keepest open door,
      And praise that generous hand of thine: 
    But let my errand first be told,
      For bracelets sold to thine this day,
    So much thou owest me in gold,
      Hast thou the ready cash to pay?

    The bracelets were enamelled—­so
      The price is high.”—­“How!  Sold to mine? 
    Who bought them, I should like to know.” 
      “Thy daughter, with the large black eyne,
    Now bathing at the marble ghat.” 
      Loud laughed the priest at this reply,
    “I shall not put up, friend, with that;
      No daughter in the world have I,
    An only son is all my stay;
      Some minx has played a trick, no doubt,
    But cheer up, let thy heart be gay. 
      Be sure that I shall find her out.”

    “Nay, nay, good father, such a face
      Could not deceive, I must aver;
    At all events, she knows thy place,
      ’And if my father should demur
    To pay thee’—­thus she said—­’or cry
      He has no money, tell him straight
    The box vermilion-streaked to try,
      That’s near the shrine,’” “Well, wait, friend, wait!”
    The priest said thoughtful, and he ran
      And with the open box came back,
    “Here is the price exact, my man,
      No surplus over, and no lack.

    How strange! how strange!  Oh blest art thou
      To have beheld her, touched her hand,
    Before whom Vishnu’s self must bow,
      And Brahma and his heavenly band! 
    Here have I worshipped her for years
      And never seen the vision bright;
    Vigils and fasts and secret tears
      Have almost quenched my outward sight;
    And yet that dazzling form and face
      I have not seen, and thou, dear friend,
    To thee, unsought for, comes the grace,
      What may its purport be, and end?

    How strange!  How strange!  Oh happy thou! 
      And couldst thou ask no other boon
    Than thy poor bracelet’s price?  That brow
      Resplendent as the autumn moon
    Must have bewildered thee, I trow,
      And made thee lose thy senses all.” 
    A dim light on the pedler now
      Began to dawn; and he let fall
    His bracelet basket in his haste,
      And backward ran the way he came;
    What meant the vision fair and chaste,
      Whose eyes were they—­those eyes of flame?

    Swift ran the pedler as a hind,
      The old priest followed on his trace,
    They reached the Ghat but could not find
      The lady of the noble face. 
    The birds were silent in the wood,
      The lotus flowers