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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1876.
What though the hermit's cloak be torn with
many a rent, What though he sleep in tombs or under forest
trees, Heeding not friend or foe, on self-communion
bent, From pride and anger free, his mind is still at
ease.
A hundred years complete our span, half that
is passed in night: Childhood and age devour the half of what be
longs to light: The rest is torn with parting pangs, of cease
less toil the slave; What profit in our human life, unstable as the
Wave ?
Enjoyments quickly lose their zest; of them
our life is made; Then why extend the hand to grasp these
flowers that bloom to fade ? If for my words you care at all, then fix your
constant soul On that eternal Fount of light I whose beams
can Love control.
Those who distinguish that which is from fleet.
ing outward shows, Do well to give up wealth and joys to gain
secure repose; What therefore must be said of us who cannot
bear to part From that which never can be ours, on which
we've set our heart ?
Eld like a tiger threats our careless bliss,
Diseases wound our frame like angry foes,
As water from a broken pitcher, flows Our life away; and yet men do amiss.
Happy who dwell in mountain-caves, praising
the One Supreme, Upon whose breasts sleep fearless birds that
drink their tears of joy, While we are sporting in the groves, and wan
dering by the stream Of some aërial pleasure-ground, our wayward
fancy's toy.
Once in a way Dame Nature makes A perfect crystal free from stain, And then, like careless workman, breaks The piece which cost her so much pain.
Death swallows Birth, and Youth's brief flash
the jaws of Age devour, Desire of wealth cuts up Content, and Love the
peaceful hour, Fell Envy's tooth gnaws Virtue's bud, and
snakes infest the wood, Kings' courts are overrun with knaves: thus
bad things feed on good.
The limbs contract, the gait's infirm, the teeth
drop from the gums, The eyesight dims, the hearing fails, and
senile drivelling comes; No more relations heed our words, our wife
e'en disobeys, Our son becomes a foe: alas ! what ills in length
of days!
Hundreds of various pains and griefs uproot
the health of man, Where Fortune takes up her abode mishaps
Boon crowd the gate, Nothing is born which Death makes not a
subject of his state, How full of fauits is Destiny ! how ill-conceived
her plan!
Man is an actor who plays various parts :First comes a boy, then out a lover starta, His garb is changed for, lo! the beggar's raga! Then he's a merchant with full money-bags; Anon an aged sire, wrinkled and lean; At last Death drops his curtain on the scene.
Hard is our lot within th' imprisoning womb, Our youth beset with separation's doom, Loathsome our age, the theme of woman's
mirth; Say then, ye men, what joy ye find on earth?
Night, day, friend, foe, dross, gems, are all the
same to me, "Twixt stones and rose-strewn beds no differ
ence I see; In some lone hermitage I let the hours glide by, And loud on Siva call with thrice-repeated cry.
tie. Siva.
