O gallant was the long array! 
      Pennons and plumes were seen,
    And swords that mirrored back the day,
      And spears and axes keen.

    Rang trump, and conch, and piercing fife,
      Woke Echo from her bed! 
    The solemn woods with sounds were rife
      As on the pageant sped.

    Hundreds, nay thousands, on they went! 
      The wild beasts fled away! 
    Deer ran in herds, and wild boars spent
      Became an easy prey.

    Whirring the peacocks from the brake
      With Argus wings arose,
    Wild swans abandoned pool and lake
      For climes beyond the snows.

    From tree to tree the monkeys sprung,
      Unharmed and unpursued,
    As louder still the trumpets rung
      And startled all the wood.

    The porcupines and such small game
      Unnoted fled at will,
    The weasel only caught to tame
      From fissures in the hill.

    Slunk light the tiger from the bank,
      But sudden turned to bay! 
    When he beheld the serried rank
      That barred his tangled way. 
    Uprooting fig-trees on their path,
      And trampling shrubs and flowers,
    Wild elephants, in fear and wrath,
      Burst through, like moving towers.

    Lowering their horns in crescents grim
      Whene’er they turned about,
    Retreated into coverts dim
      The bisons’ fiercer rout.

    And in this mimic game of war
      In bands dispersed and passed
    The royal train—­some near, some far,
      As day closed in at last.

    Where was the king?  He left his friends
      At mid-day, it was known,
    And now that evening fast descends
      Where was he?  All alone.

    Curving, the river formed a lake,
      Upon whose bank he stood, I
    No noise the silence there to break,
      Or mar the solitude.

    Upon the glassy surface fell
      The last beams of the day,
    Like fiery darts, that lengthening swell,
      As breezes wake and play.

    Osiers and willows on the edge
      And purple buds and red,
    Leant down—­and ’mid the pale green sedge
      The lotus raised its head.

    And softly, softly, hour by hour
      Light faded, and a veil
    Fell over tree, and wave, and flower,
      On came the twilight pale.

    Deeper and deeper grew the shades,
      Stars glimmered in the sky,
    The nightingale along the glades
      Raised her preluding cry. 
    What is that momentary flash? 
      A gleam of silver scales
    Reveals the Mahseer;—­then a splash,
      And calm again prevails.

    As darkness settled like a pall
      The eye would pierce in vain,
    The fireflies gemmed the bushes all,
      Like fiery drops of rain.