These had they passed When from the roadside moaned a mournful voice, "Help, masters! lift me to my feet; oh, help! Or I shall die before I reach my house!" A stricken wretch it was, whose quivering frame, Caught by some deadly plague, lay in the dust Writhing, with fiery purple blotches specked; The chill sweat beaded on his brow, his mouth Was dragged awry with twichings of sore pain, The wild eyes swam with inward agony. Gasping, he clutched the grass to rise, and rose Half-way, then sank, with quaking feeble limbs And scream of terror, crying, "Ah, the pain! Good people, help!" whereon Siddartha ran, Lifted the woful man with tender hands, With sweet looks laid the sick head on his knee, And while his soft touch comforted the wretch, Asked: "Brother, what is ill with thee? what harm Hath fallen? wherefore canst thou not arise? Why is it, Channa, that he pants and moans, And gasps to speak and sighs so pitiful?" Then spake the charioteer: "Great Prince! this man Is smitten with some pest; his elements Are all confounded; in his veins the blood, Which ran a wholesome river, leaps and boils A fiery flood; his heart, which kept good time, Beats like an ill-played drum-skin, quick and slow; His sinews slacken like a bow-string slipped; The strength is gone from ham, and loin, and neck, And all the grace and joy of manhood fled; This is a sick man with the fit upon him. See how be plucks and plucks to seize his grief, And rolls his bloodshot orbs and grinds his teeth, And draws his breath as if 'twere choking smoke. Lo! now he would be dead, but shall not die Until the plague hath had its work in him, Killing the nerves which die before the life; Then, when his strings have cracked with agony And all his bones are empty of the sense To ache, the plague will quit and light elsewhere. Oh, sir! it is not good to hold him so! The harm may pass, and strike thee, even thee." But spake the Prince, still comforting the man, "And are there others, are there many thus? Or might it be to me as now with him?" "Great Lord!" answered the charioteer, "this comes In many forms to all men; griefs and wounds, Sickness and tetters, palsies, leprosies, Hot fevers, watery wastings, issues, blains Befall all flesh and enter everywhere." "Come such ills unobserved?" the Prince inquired. And Channa said: "Like the sly snake they come That stings unseen; like the striped murderer, Who waits to spring from the Karunda bush, Hiding beside the jungle path; or like The lightning, striking these and sparing those, As chance may send." "Then all men live in fear?" "So live they, Prince!"