While they were passing through these varied scenes,
The prince, whose ears were tuned to life's sad notes,
Whose eyes were quick to catch its deepest shades,
Found sorrow, pain and want, disease and death,
Were woven in its very warp and woof.
A tiger, springing from a sheltering bush,
Had snatched a merchant's comrade from his side;
A deadly cobra, hidden by the path,
Had stung to death a widow's only son;
A breath of jungle-wind a youth's blood chilled,
Or filled a strong man's bones with piercing pain;
A household widowed by a careless step;
The quick cross-lightning from an angry cloud
Struck down a bridegroom bringing home his bride--
All this and more he heard, and much he saw:
A young man, stricken in life's early prime,
Shuffled along, dragging one palsied limb,
While one limp arm hung useless by his side;
A dwarf sold little knickknacks by the way,
His body scarcely in the human form,
To which long arms and legs seemed loosely hung,
His noble head thrust forward on his breast,
Whose pale, sad face as plainly told as words
That life had neither health nor hope for him;
An old man tottering from a hovel came,
Frail, haggard, palsied, leaning on a staff,
Whose eyes, dull, glazed and meaningless, proclaim
The body lingers when the mind has fled;
One seized with sudden hot distemper of the blood,
Writhing with anguish, by the wayside sunk.