Northward from Ganges' stream and India's plains An ancient city crowned a lofty hill, Whose high embattled walls had often rolled The surging, angry tide of battle back. Walled on three sides, but on the north a cliff, At once the city's quarry and its guard, Cut out in galleries, with vaulted roofs[1] Upborne upon cyclopean columns vast, Chiseled with art, their capitals adorned With lions, elephants, and bulls, life size, Once dedicate to many monstrous gods Before the Aryan race as victors came, Then prisons, granaries and magazines, Now only known to bandits and wild beasts. This cliff, extending at each end, bends north, And rises in two mountain-chains that end In two vast snow-capped Himalayan peaks, Between which runs a glittering glacial stream, A mighty moving mass of crystal ice, Crushing the rocks in its resistless course; From which bursts forth a river that had made Of all this valley one great highland lake, Which on one side had burst its bounds and cut In myriad years a channel through the rock, So narrow that a goat might almost leap From cliff to cliff--these cliffs so smooth and steep The eagles scarce could build upon their sides; This yawning chasm so deep one scarce could hear The angry waters roaring far below. This stream, guided by art, now fed a lake Above the city and behind this cliff, Which, guided thence in channels through the rock, Fed many fountains, sending crystal streams Through every street and down the terraced hill, And through the plain in little silver streams, Spreading the richest verdure far and wide.[2] Here was the seat of King Suddhodana, His royal park, walled by eternal hills, Where trees and shrubs and flowers all native grew; For in its bounds all the four seasons met, From ever-laughing, ever-blooming spring To savage winter with eternal snows. Here stately palms, the banyan's many trunks, Darkening whole acres with its grateful shade, And bamboo groves, with graceful waving plumes, The champak, with its fragrant golden flowers, Asokas, one bright blaze of brilliant bloom, The mohra, yielding food and oil and wine, The sacred sandal and the spreading oak, The mountain-loving fir and spruce and pine, And giant cedars, grandest of them all, Planted in ages past, and thinned and pruned With that high art that hides all trace of art,[3] Were placed to please the eye and show their form In groves, in clumps, in jungles and alone.