62 



AMRA. 



learned accomplishments extended no farther than to read and write 

 the Hindostanee tongue. To tend and water her flowers, to feed her 

 birds, which inhabited a gaily gilded aviary in her garden, to string 

 pearls, to embroider muslin, were her employments ; to pay visits 

 and receive them, to lie upon cushions, and to be fanned asleep by 

 her maids, or listen to the endless tales of her old nurse, Gautami, 

 whose memory was a vast treasure of traditional wonders these were 

 her amusements. That there were graver occupations, and dearer 

 pleasures, proper to her sex, she knew; but thought not of them, till 

 the young Govinda came to disturb the peace of her innocent bosom. 



She had been told to regard him as a brother ; and, as she had 

 never known a brother, she believed, that, in lavishing upon him all 

 the glowing tenderness of her young heart, she was but obeying her 

 father's commands. If her bosom fluttered when she heard his foot- 

 steps ; if she trembled upon the tones of his voice ; if, while he was 

 occupied in the services of the temple, she sat in her veranda await- 

 ing his return, and, the moment he appeared through the imbowering 

 acacias, a secret and unaccountable feeling made her breathe quick, 

 and rise in haste and retire to her inner apartments, till he approach- 

 ed to pay the salutations due to the daughter of his preceptor; what 

 was it, what could it be, but the tender solicitude of a sister for a 

 new-found brother ? But Govinda himself was not so entirely de- 

 ceived. His boyhood had been passed in a luxurious court, and 

 among the women and slaves of his brother's harem ; and though 

 so young, he was not wholly inexperienced in a passion, which is 

 the too early growth of an eastern heart. He knew why he languish- 

 ed in the presence of his beautiful sister; he could tell why the dark 

 splendour of Amra's eyes pierced his soul like the winged flames 

 shot into a besieged city. He could guess too, why those eyes kind- 

 led with a softer fire beneath his glance : but the love he felt was 

 so chastened by the awe, which her serene purity, and the dignity 

 of her sweet and feminine bearing shed around her ; so hallowed by 

 the nominal relationship in which they stood ; so different, in short, 

 from any thing he had ever felt, or seen, or heard of, that, abandoned 

 to all the sweet and dream-like enchantment of a boyish passion, 

 Govinda was scarcely conscious of the wishes of his own heart until 

 accident in the same moment disclosed his secret aspirations to him- 

 self, and bade him for ever despair of their accomplishment. 



On the last day of the dark half of the moon, it was the custom of 

 the wise and venerable Sarma to bathe at sunset in the Ganges, and 

 afterwards retire to private meditation upon the thousand names of 

 God, by the repetition of which, as it is written, a man insures to 



