"For the fiends are without, and I hear them now, Now the fire is calmly burning, And the orgy hath begun, "Seizers of the wretch who wars * * Tapana is one of the many Boudhese hells to which, among other criminals, the dabblers in unlawful arts are condemned. The reader will note, that in the ensuing incantation, the sorcerer forsakes the Boudhist superstition, and alludes only to the Hindoo. The Hindoo magicians, to whose order he appears to belong, are of greater renown than the Boudhist. "Ye, whom my victory taught to fear me, "And ye who sweep thro' the air and the deep, "Ye mocking ELEMENTS-who laugh "At a mortal's doom with a frantic mirth"And scatter our dust, when we die, like chaff "O'er the heart of the griefless earth: "Ye, whom my victory taught to fear me, "Bhuta,† dread servants of Siva,‡ hear me ! "Four and sixty bones are here, "Blent and seethed in the bowl of Fear; "Four and sixty roots are mingled 66 By the moon, at her moment of glory, singled. "By these, by the ashes, the draught, and the dust-"Come hither-come hither, ye must-ye must! 66 Steep my tongue in the Fount of the Future Things, "And shadow my soul with your rushing wings." The planets: their name (Grahana) signifies the act of seizing, and they are chiefly invoked by the Hindoo magicians in ceremonies denouncing evil upon enemies. † Bhuta, the Elements, are considered by the Hindoos as demons— the Atharvana Veda-(one of their sacred books)-is said to enjoin their worship. Siva, the God of Destruction. As he spoke, on his lip there gathered the foam, And his voice, from a breath, to its height had clombe, And the blood swelled forth in each corded vein, And the drops of his agony fell like rain. But still as a calm on a lowering sea, And wherever he turned they came-they came- Some of the dwarfed and deadliest tribe, Whence the poison the shafts of a chief imbibe; And at length on its lead wing heavily "Ye have come with your golden wings, "The dim unbodied Shapes that wait "The Stream and the Bark shall glide "With a happy Sun, and a quiet Tide; "But the Stream at length shall chafe at the Sail, "And its wave shall rise to an angered gale, "And the Stream on the guiltless Bark shall war, "And the Bark shall know dread on the fitful wave; "And the Stream shall look up to a single Star, "And the Star shall endanger the Bark, but-save. "And the Bark in a quiet Port shall rest, "But the Stream shall roll on with a lonely breast. "Lo! lo! where it enters the earth, and its way "Is snatched like a dream from the face of the day. "Not a glimpse from its course-not a voice from its waves "Lo! it sinks from my sight-in the depths of the As he ceaseth, the fiery bound And the Serpent shapes that hiss around, Like the bodies the laws of the Apé* allow But life for a stated hour. As a corpse when the spirit is fled, As a spear from a hand when the life is o'er, The Sorcerer drooped his head, And dropped on the darkening floor. Then, by the last blue ray Of the flame, while the Serpents creep *The Condemned. |