While they were passing through these varied scenes,
  The prince, whose ears were tuned to life’s sad notes,
  Whose eyes were quick to catch its deepest shades,
  Found sorrow, pain and want, disease and death,
  Were woven in its very warp and woof. 
  A tiger, springing from a sheltering bush,
  Had snatched a merchant’s comrade from his side;
  A deadly cobra, hidden by the path,
  Had stung to death a widow’s only son;
  A breath of jungle-wind a youth’s blood chilled,
  Or filled a strong man’s bones with piercing pain;
  A household widowed by a careless step;
  The quick cross-lightning from an angry cloud
  Struck down a bridegroom bringing home his bride—­
  All this and more he heard, and much he saw: 
  A young man, stricken in life’s early prime,
  Shuffled along, dragging one palsied limb,
  While one limp arm hung useless by his side;
  A dwarf sold little knickknacks by the way,
  His body scarcely in the human form,
  To which long arms and legs seemed loosely hung,
  His noble head thrust forward on his breast,
  Whose pale, sad face as plainly told as words
  That life had neither health nor hope for him;
  An old man tottering from a hovel came,
  Frail, haggard, palsied, leaning on a staff,
  Whose eyes, dull, glazed and meaningless, proclaim
  The body lingers when the mind has fled;
  One seized with sudden hot distemper of the blood,
  Writhing with anguish, by the wayside sunk. 
  The purple plague-spot on his pallid cheek,
  Cold drops of perspiration on his brow,
  With wildly rolling eyes and livid lips,
  Gasping for breath and feebly asking help—­
  But ere the prince could aid, death gave relief.

  At length they passed the city’s outer gate
  And down a stream, now spread in shining pools,
  Now leaping in cascades, now dashing on,
  A line of foam along its rocky bed,
  Bordered by giant trees with densest shade. 
  Here, day by day, the city bring their dead;
  Here, day by day, they build the funeral-piles;
  Here lamentations daily fill the air;
  Here hissing flames each day taste human flesh,
  And friendly watchmen guard the smoldering pile
  Till friends can cull the relics from the dust. 
  And here, just finished, rose a noble pile
  By stately Brahmans for a Brahman built
  Of fragrant woods, and drenched with fragrant oils,
  Loading the air with every sweet perfume
  That India’s forests or her fields can yield;
  Above, a couch of sacred cusa-grass,
  On which no dreams disturb the sleeper’s rest. 
  And now the sound of music reaches them,
  Far off at first, solemn and sad and slow,
  Rising and swelling as it nearer comes,
  Until a long procession comes in view. 
  Four Brahmans first, bearing in bowls the fire
  No more to burn on one deserted hearth,