VÁlmÍki, graceful speaker, heard,

To highest admiration stirred.

To him whose fame the tale rehearsed

He paid his mental worship first;

Then with his pupil humbly bent

Before the saint most eloquent.

Thus honoured and dismissed the seer

Departed to his heavenly sphere.

Then from his cot VÁlmÍki hied

To TamasÁ's44 sequestered side,

Not far remote from GangÁ's tide.

He stood and saw the ripples roll

Pellucid o'er a pebbly shoal.

To BharadvÁja45 by his side

He turned in ecstasy, and cried:

The smooth-floored shallow, pure and bright,

With not a speck or shade to mar,

And clear as good men's bosoms are.

Here on the brink thy pitcher lay,

And bring my zone of bark, I pray.

Here will I bathe: the rill has not,

To lave the limbs, a fairer spot.

Do quickly as I bid, nor waste

Obedient to his master's hest

Quick from the cot he brought the vest;

The hermit took it from his hand,

And tightened round his waist the band;

Then duly dipped and bathed him there,

And muttered low his secret prayer.

To spirits and to Gods he made

Libation of the stream, and strayed

Viewing the forest deep and wide

That spread its shade on every side.

Close by the bank he saw a pair

Of curlews sporting fearless there.

But suddenly with evil mind

An outcast fowler stole behind,

And, with an aim too sure and true,

The male bird near the hermit slew.

The wretched hen in wild despair

With fluttering pinions beat the air,

And shrieked a long and bitter cry

When low on earth she saw him lie,

Her loved companion, quivering, dead,

His dear wings with his lifeblood red;

And for her golden crested mate

She mourned, and was disconsolate.

The hermit saw the slaughtered bird,

And all his heart with ruth was stirred.

The fowler's impious deed distressed

His gentle sympathetic breast,

And while the curlew's sad cries rang

Within his ears, the hermit sang:

Because, base outcast, of thy crime,

Whose cruel hand was fain to slay

E'en as he spoke his bosom wrought

And laboured with the wondering thought

What was the speech his ready tongue

Had uttered when his heart was wrung.

He pondered long upon the speech,

Recalled the words and measured each,

And thus exclaimed the saintly guide

To BharadvÁja by his side:

With rhythm and time and tone complete,

The measured form of words I spoke

And BharadvÁja, nothing slow

His faithful love and zeal to show,

Answered those words of wisdom, “Be

As rules prescribe the hermit took

Some lustral water from the brook.

But still on this his constant thought

Kept brooding, as his home he sought;

While BharadvÁja paced behind,

A pupil sage of lowly mind,

And in his hand a pitcher bore

With pure fresh water brimming o'er.