As Charm prepared to end her mortal pain
    In fire, she heard a voice from heaven cry,
  That showed her mercy, as the early rain
    Shows mercy to the fish, when lakes go dry: 

  “O wife of Love!  Thy lover is not lost
    For evermore.  This voice shall tell thee why
  He perished like the moth, when he had crossed
    The dreadful god, in fire from Shiva’s eye.

  When darts of Love set Brahma in a flame,
    To shame his daughter with impure desire,
  He checked the horrid sin without a name,
    And cursed the god of love to die by fire.

  But Virtue interceded in behalf
    Of Love, and won a softening of the doom: 
  ’Upon the day when Shiva’s heart shall laugh
    In wedding joy, for mercy finding room,

  He shall unite Love’s body with the soul,
    A marriage-present to his mountain bride.’ 
  As clouds hold fire and water in control,
    Gods are the fount of wrath, and grace beside.

  So, gentle Charm, preserve thy body sweet
    For dear reunion after present pain;
  The stream that dwindles in the summer heat,
    Is reunited with the autumn rain.”

  Invisibly and thus mysteriously
    The thoughts of Charm were turned away from death;
  And Spring, believing where he might not see,
    Comforted her with words of sweetest breath.

  The wife of Love awaited thus the day,
    Though racked by grief, when fate should show its power,
  As the waning moon laments her darkened ray
    And waits impatient for the twilight hour.

Fifth canto.  The reward of self-denial.—­Parvati reproaches her own beauty, for “loveliness is fruitless if it does not bind a lover.”  She therefore resolves to lead a life of religious self-denial, hoping that the merit thus acquired will procure her Shiva’s love.  Her mother tries in vain to dissuade her; her father directs her to a fit mountain peak, and she retires to her devotions.  She lays aside all ornaments, lets her hair hang unkempt, and assumes the hermit’s dress of bark.  While she is spending her days in self-denial, she is visited by a Brahman youth, who compliments her highly upon her rigid devotion, and declares that her conduct proves the truth of the proverb:  Beauty can do no wrong.  Yet he confesses himself bewildered, for she seems to have everything that heart can desire.  He therefore asks her purpose in performing these austerities, and is told how her desires are fixed upon the highest of all objects, upon the god Shiva himself, and how, since Love is dead, she sees no way to win him except by ascetic religion.  The youth tries to dissuade Parvati by recounting all the dreadful legends that are current about Shiva:  how he wears a coiling snake on his wrist, a bloody elephant-hide upon his back, how he dwells in a graveyard, how he rides upon an undignified bull, how poor he is and of unknown birth.  Parvati’s anger is awakened by this recital.  She frowns and her lip quivers as she defends herself and the object of her love.