“Oh! what is heaven without thee, love? With thee I’ll live and die; Never will Râma stoop to fear, though Brahma’s self come nigh. Obedience to my father’s will now sends me to the wood; For paramount of duties this is counted by the good. Only to try thy mind, my love, thy prayer I first denied: I never dreamed that aught could harm the lady by my side; But yet I feared to suffer thee, so delicate and fair, The troubles of a forest life and all its woes to share. Now, as the glory of his life the saint can ne’er resign, Thou too, devoted, brave, and true, shalt follow and be mine.” GRIFFITH. As a favorable specimen of the florid description in which Hindoo imagination excels, we quote from the same epic, THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES. “From the high heaven burst Ganges forth, first on Siva’s lofty crown; Headlong then, and prone to earth, thundering rushed the cataract down. Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins, and in their mirth, Fallen, or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth; And all the host of heaven came down, sprites and genii in amaze, And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze. On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers rode. Or on soft-swinging palanquin lay wondering, each observant god. As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewelled vestures’ rays, The coruscating ether glowed, as with a hundred suns ablaze. And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray, The snowy-flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at play. And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets wound; Then lake-like spread, all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed around; Then ’neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the boiling tide; Then stream with stream, harmonious blending, swell bubbling up or smooth subside. By that heaven-welling water’s breast, the genii and the sages stood; Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plunged within the lustral flood.”—MILMAN.