O hapless Queen! Ill-fated child of Fame!

Thy husband's love, his dotage-born obsession,

How well thy life illumes the dreadful lesson

That flesh-bound love is one consuming flame!

O dauntless soul in woman's fragile frame,

In days of yore thy love for lord did burn

Thine inborn fears, thy sex to ashes turn

The while thy daring snatched the gods from shame

Of dire defeat; anew thy love for son,

Thy love to see him all Ayodhya's king,

Did burn the queen the wife in thee! How brief

Is joy in earth-bound love! How fraught with grief

This luring flame, this soul consuming thing!

How grave its toll! How dire the reward won!

A righteous monarch's death of broken heart,

A woman's anguish lorn of lord and child,

A kingdom's mourn and yearn for heir exil'd,

All these thou wrought! And yet were these no part

Of plan of thy devise! The ruthless art

That rained red ruin o'er the Raghu land

Was work of Fate, whose woeful vengeful hand

Sent e'en thy dream to crown thy son athwart!

Thy wiles brought gall to all and joy to none!

Misguided queen! Ambition's thoughtless fool!

The hunch, thy mentor, hell's vile minion

That fanned a mother's ‘spiring spark to flame,

That fiend in guise and guile, thy friend in name

Was imp of Fate, none else! And thou, her tool!

Relentless Fate when she did turn her face

In wrath upon the Raghu clan and land,

Her blackest look she cast, her gravest hand

She laid on him, thy son, whose prowess, grace

And wisdom marked him noblest of his race;

Ador'd of parent, brother, kin and spouse,

Admir'd of friend, afeard of foe, his house

Ne'er gender'd greater son! Yet fast apace

Did Fate's dire darts descend his sinless head!

Fate's femine freaks, alack, were ever so:

The guilty left unscathed, the guileless bled

Of heart or burnt of soul! At one fell blow

Was he bereft of sire and kin! And thou

His best loved mother loos'd this flood of woe!

Calamity's a touchstone to assay

True worth of human kind. Whilst craven hearts

Will rage and rave, the brave their nobler parts

Convoke and calmly brunt their woe. The sway

Of grief or vengeful ire unveils the way

Of churls! The son, had he been base of breed

Or faint of heart or mean of soul, thy deed

Had surely charg'd his reeling brain to slay,

Nay tear thee limb from limb, to vent his ire,

And venge a widowed mother's broken heart,

A people's grief and death of godly sire!

But e'en a madden'd woman's monster crime

Could scarcely ruffle his soul serene, sublime!

Sore Pity ‘twas replac'd Revenge's part.

In Pity's light it is that God doth view

All human sins; and Pity's light doth shed

No purple rays of Pride; nor Ire's blood-red

Nor Envy's green nor Fear's jaundiced hue

Mars Pity's flame whose lambent limpid blue

Reveals the God in man! The Burden grave

Prince Bharata in pity bore to save

His mother's burning soul in kindly dew

Of great Kausalya's forgiveness, did start

A wail of woe for all eternity!

And cleft in twain to con thy life, my heart,

Like Marg'ret yawns athirst for Swathi's rain,

Did gasp agape and froze my tears of pain

Into this song of soul-deep sympathy.