The swords that sheaths no longer clasped,
  That hands of heroes firmly grasped,
  Flashed out in glory through the fight,
  As if they laughed in mad delight.

  And many a warrior’s eager lance
  Shone radiant in the eerie dance,
  A curling, lapping tongue of death
  To lick away the soldier’s breath.

  Some, panting with a bloody thirst,
  Fought toward the victim chosen first,
  But had a reeking path to hew
  Before they had him full in view.

  Great elephants, their drivers gone
  And pierced with arrows, struggled on,
  But sank at every step in mud
  Made liquid by the streams of blood.

  The warriors falling in the fray,
  Whose heads the sword had lopped away,
  Were able still to fetch a blow
  That slew the loud-exulting foe.

  The footmen thrown to Paradise
  By elephants of monstrous size,
  Were seized upon by nymphs above,
  Exchanging battle-scenes for love.

  The lancer, charging at his foe,
  Would pierce him through and bring him low,
  And would not heed the hostile dart
  That found a lodgment in his heart.

  The war-horse, though unguided, stopped
  The moment that his rider dropped,
  And wept above the lifeless head,
  Still faithful to his master dead.

  Two lancers fell with mortal wound
  And still they struggled on the ground;
  With bristling hair, with brandished knife,
  Each strove to end the other’s life.

  Two slew each other in the fight;
  To Paradise they took their flight;
  There with a nymph they fell in love,
  And still they fought in heaven above.

  Two souls there were that reached the sky;
  From heights of heaven they could spy
  Two writhing corpses on the plain,
  And knew their headless forms again.

As the struggle comes to no decisive issue, Taraka seeks out the chief gods, and charges upon them.

Seventeenth canto.  Taraka is slain.—­Taraka engages the principal gods and defeats them with magic weapons.  When they are relieved by Kumara, the demon turns to the youthful god of war, and advises him to retire from the battle.

  Stripling, you are the only son
    Of Shiva and of Parvati. 
  Go safe and live!  Why should you run
    On certain death?  Why fight with me? 
  Withdraw!  Let sire and mother blest
  Clasp living son to joyful breast.

  Flee, son of Shiva, flee the host
    Of Indra drowning in the sea
  That soon shall close upon his boast
    In choking waves of misery. 
  For Indra is a ship of stone;
  Withdraw, and let him sink alone.

Kumara answers with modest firmness.

  The words you utter in your pride,
    O demon-prince, are only fit;
  Yet I am minded to abide
    The fight, and see the end of it. 
  The tight-strung bow and brandished sword
  Decide, and not the spoken word.