And twelve months passed--twelve weary months, which seemed To his grief-stricken mind a hundred years; And then at last, worn out, the best of kings Lay down to rest; and as upon his couch All motionless in sleep he lay, he saw A wondrous vision. By the power divine He seemed to wear another form,--a form Both new and strange,--and in that form to pay The vow. Twelve years of expiation passed With difficulty. Then within himself King Harišchandra thought: "So too will I, When I am freed from hence, perform my vows With generous freedom." Forthwith he was born As a Pukkasa; while a place was found For him among the dead, and funeral rites Were ordered as his task. Thus seven years Were passed; then to the burying-place was brought A Brâhman seeking sepulture: in life He had been poor, but honest; and the king, Though he knew this--the dead man's poverty And his uprightness--pressed his friends to pay The funeral dues. "Enforce thy right," they said, "And do this evil deed; yet know thou this: Once upon earth there was a mighty king Named Harišchandra; though he but disturbed A Brâhman's sleep, through that offence he lost His merit, and by Višvâmitra's curse Became a base Pukkasa." "Yet the king Spared not the dead man's friends, but still required His fee. Therefore they cursed him in their rage-- "Go!--go!--thou most degraded of mankind-- Go to the lowest hell!" Then in his dream The king beheld the messengers of death. Fearful to look at, armed with heavy chains, They seized him, and they bound him hand and foot, And bore him off. And then, in fear and pain, Headlong he fell into the bath of oil In Nâraka. There, torn with instruments Sharp-edged as razors, fed on putrid blood, He saw himself. For seven years in hell-- Now burnt from day to day, now tossed and torn, Now cut by knives, and now by icy winds Frozen and numbed--a dead Pukkasa's fate He underwent. Each day in Nâraka, A hundred years of mortal reckoning-- So count the demons who inhabit hell. Then he beheld himself cast up to earth, His spirit entering a filthy dog; Feeding on things all foul and horrible-- Consumed by cold. A month thus passed away. His spirit changed its dwelling, and he saw Himself an ass; and after that an ox, A cow, a goat, a sheep, a bird, a worm. So day by day he saw his spirit change Its outward shape. A multitude of forms-- Some moving, others rooted to the ground-- Received his soul. And when the hundred years Were passed and gone, he saw himself again Re-occupy his pristine human form-- Once more a king. And then he seemed to lose His kingdom, casting it away in games Of chance. Turned from his home a wanderer Into the forest with his wife and child: Devoured by a ravening beast, but raised To life again on earth, he sore bewailed His wife: "Alas! why hast thou left me thus?