With heaps of bones; and wailing, sharp and shrill,
Re-echoed from the mourners of the dead.
The bodies on the funeral piles, half burnt,
Crackled and hissed; showing their shining teeth,
They grinned, as if in sport; while all the time
The howl of demons and the wail of fiends
Were mingled with the roar of flames--a sound
Of fearful import, such as ushers in
The day of doom. The sights, and sounds, and smells--
The heaps of ashes, and the piles of bones,
Blackened with filth--the smoke, the shouts,
The yells--struck fear on fear into the heart.
The burial-place resembled nought but hell.
Such was the place appointed for the king.
"Priests! Brahmans! Counsellors! how have I fallen
From all my royal state! Alas! my queen!
Alas! my son! Oh! miserable fate!
We have been torn asunder by the power
Of Visvamitra." Thoughts like these possessed
His inmost mind; while foul, unshorn, unwashed,
He served his master. Running here and there,
Armed with a jagged club, he sought the dead,
From whom he gained his wages. So he lived,
Degraded from his caste. Old knotted rags
Served as his dress; his face and arms and feet
With dust and ashes from the funeral piles
Begrimed; his hands defiled with putrid flesh
From contact with the bodies of the dead.
So neither day nor night he ceased from toil.
And twelve months passed--twelve weary months, which seemed