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REVIEW OF THE NAISHADHA CHARITA, 



let the valour be accursed, that spends 

 Its force on a defenceless wretched bird. 

 Will not the world cry shame upon the man, 

 That kills an innocent like me who live 



As sages, on the produce of the earth ? 

 He then addressed the King in plaintive notes. 

 And poured into his heart, the sea of love, 

 A flowing stream of pitiful distress. 



1 am my mother's only darling son. 

 My wife has lately borne a son to me, 

 And wilt thou not in pity spare me now ? 



My friends, indeed, will mourn my fate awhile, 



And loud lament the vanity of life ; 



Yet after that will soon repress their tears ; 



But, O my mother dear ! thy poignant grief 



Will be a sea, that never can be crossed. 



O my beloved wife ! what wilt thou feel, 



When asking those thou meetest on the road. 



If they have seen thy husband hastening home. 



With large provisions stored, and travelling slow, 



Thou seet them burst into a flood of tears. 



Before they tell the dismal tale of woe ? 



O gracious God, how could thy beauteous hand, 



That formed her plastic, kind and tender heart 



Write such hard things within the book of fate ? 



O my dear wife ! what feelings will be thine, 



When like a thunder bolt this fatal blow 



Shall strike thy heart, thy brightest prospects blast. 



And turn the world into a wilderness ! 



Thou lovely fair! if grief for me should break 



Thine heart, then I shall feel a second death ; 



For from that time my family will die. 



When thou art gone who will take care of them ? 



The children then of many prayers, distressed, 



And rolling in their nest, and crying out 



For food, with sunken eyes will soon expire. 



