At length they reach the place where Vishnu appears in the form of Kapila, with the horse feeding near him; a flame issues forth from the indignant deity, and the six myriad sons of Sagara become a heap of ashes.

The adventure devolves on the youthful Ansuman, who achieves it with perfect success; Vishnu permits him to lead away the steed, but the ashes of his brethren cannot be purified by earthly water; the goddess Ganga must first be brought to earth, and, having undergone lustration from that holy flood, the race of Sagara are to ascend to heaven. Yet a long period elapses; and it is not till the reign of the virtuous Bhagiratha, that Brahma is moved by his surpassing penance to grant the descent of Ganga from heaven. King Bhagiratha had taken his stand on the top of Gokarna, the sacred peak of the Himavan, (the Himalaya,) and here

"Stands with arms outstretch'd on high, amid five blazing fires, the one Towards each quarter of the sky, the fifth the full meridian sun. Mid fiercest frosts on snow he slept, the dry and withered leaves his food,

Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.'

6

His prayers are irresistible; but Brahma forewarns him, that the unbroken descent of Ganga from heaven would be so overpowering, that the earth would be unable to sustain it, and Siva must be propitiated, in order that he may receive on his head the precipitous cataract. Under this wild and unwieldy allegory appears to lurk an obscure allusion to the course of the Ganges among the summits, and under the forests of the Himalaya, which are the locks of Siva.

High on the top of Himavān the mighty Mashawara stood; And " Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering waterFull of wrath, the mandate heard Himavān's majestic daughter. To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,

From heaven's height down rush'd she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head,

Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep By her fierce waves overborne, down to hell's remotest deep.'

Siva, in his turn enraged, resists her fury.

'Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there
Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair,
Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age, the goddess wanders.'

The king again has recourse to his penances, Siva is propitiated, and the stream by seven* channels finds its way to the plains of India. The spirit and the luxuriance of the description which follows, of the king leading the way, and the obedient waters rolling after his car, appear to me of a high order of poetry.

Up the raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps, Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps.

From the high heaven burst she forth first on Siva's lofty crown,

Headlong then and prone to earth thundering rushed the cataract down, Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins in their mirth,

Fallen or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth.

And all the host of heaven came down, spirits and genii, in amaze, And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze. On cars, like high tower'd cities, seen, with elephants and coursers,

rode,

Or on soft swinging palanquin, lay wondering each observant god.
As met in bright divan each god, and flash'd their jewell'd vestures'

rays,

The coruscating æther glow'd, as with a hundred suns ablaze.

* Schlegel supposes the three western streams to be the Indus, which appears under its real name the Sind, the Iaxartes, and the Oxus; are not the Sareswatie, or perhaps the Sutlej, under the name of Sita, and the Jumna meant? Of the eastern branches, it is not difficult to fix the Burhampooter. Schlegel suggests the Irawaddy, and the Blue River of China. Why not the Alacananda and the Gogra? The main stream bears the name of the Bhaghiratha, till it joins the Alacananda and takes the name of the Ganges.

And with the fish and dolphins gleaming, and scaly crocodiles and snakes, [breaks : Glanc'd the air, as when fast streaming the blue lightning shoots and And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray, The snowy flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at play. And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets wound,

[around,

Then lakelike spread all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed Then 'neath the cavern'd earth descending, then spouted up the [smooth subside.

boiling tide,

Then stream with stream harmonious blending, swell bubbling up or By that heaven-welling water's breast, the genii and the sages stood, Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plung'd within the lustral flood. Whoe'er beneath the curse of heaven from that immaculate world

had fled,

To th' impure earth in exile driven, to that all-holy baptism sped;
And purified from every sin, to the bright spirit's bliss restor❜d,
Th' ethereal sphere they entered in, and through th' empyreal man-
sions soar'd.

The world in solemn jubilee behold those heavenly waves draw near,
From sin and dark pollution free, bathed in the blameless waters clear.
Swift king Bhagiratha drave upon his lofty glittering car,

And swift with her obeisant wave bright Ganga followed him afar.'

THE DELUGE *.

AN ODE.

"For as the days of Noe were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. For, as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."

MATTHEW XXV. 37-39.

SPIRIT of man! if e'er thy faith essay
To shadow forth that final judgment day,

When the vast universal doom

Shall earth and heaven, and nature's self, entomb; Spirit of man! when dread Annihilation,

Making created space its realm,

All things in second chaos shall o'erwhelm,
To wait the omnific word of new creation,
The awe, the majesty, the desolation ;
Myriads of angels round his ire,

Whose presence is th' all-wasting fire,

The arch-angelic trumpet sternly blown,
All sepulchres at once upbreaking,

All climes, all nations, races, ages, waking;

* This poem has been written for some time, but is now first published.