KAILYAL. Alas, thou fearest him! Immortal as thou art, thou fearest him! I thought that death had sav'd me from his power; {64} Not even the dead are safe. EREENIA. Long years of life and happiness, O Child of Earth, be thine! From death I sav'd thee, and from all thy foes Will save thee, while the Swerga is secure. KAILYAL. Not me alone, O gentle Deveta! I have a father suffering upon earth, A persecuted, wretched, poor, good man, For whose strange misery There is no human help, And none but I dare comfort him Beneath Kehama's curse. O gentle Deveta, protect him too! EREENIA. Come, plead thyself to Indra! words like thine May win their purpose, rouse his slumbering heart, And make him yet put forth his arm to wield The thunder, while the thunder is his own. {65} 8. Then to the garden of the Deity Ereenia led the maid. In the mid garden tower'd a giant Tree; Rock-rooted on a mountain-top, it grew, Rear'd its unrivall'd head on high, And stretch'd a thousand branches o'er the sky, Drinking with all its leaves celestial dew. Lo! where from thence as from a living well A thousand torrents flow! For still in one perpetual shower, Like diamond drops, etherial waters fell From every leaf of all its ample bower. Rolling adown the steep From that aerial height, Through the deep shade of aromatic trees, Half-seen, the cataracts shoot their gleams of light, And pour upon the breeze Their thousand voices; far away the roar, In modulations of delightful sound, Half-heard and ever varying, floats around. Below, an ample Lake expanded lies, Blue as the o'er-arching skies; Forth issuing from that lovely Lake, {66} A thousand rivers water Paradise. Full to the brink, yet never overflowing, They cool the amorous gales, which, ever blowing, O'er their melodious surface love to stray; Then winging back their way, Their vapours to the parent Tree repay; And ending thus where they began, And feeding thus the source from whence they came, The eternal rivers of the Swerga ran, For ever renovate, yet still the same.