Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Funeral of Arvalan
By Robert Southey (1774–1843)M
Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep!
Behold her streets ablaze
With light that seems to kindle the red sky,
Her myriads swarming through the crowded ways!
Master and slave, old age and infancy,
All, all abroad to gaze;
House-top and balcony
Clustered with women, who throw back their veils
With unimpeded and insatiate sight
To view the funeral pomp which passes by,
As if the mournful rite
Were but to them a scene of joyance and delight.
Your feeble beams ye shed,
Quenched in the unnatural light which might outstare
Even the broad eye of day;
And thou from thy celestial way
Pourest, O moon, an ineffectual ray!
For lo! ten thousand torches flame and flare
Upon the midnight air,
Blotting the lights of heaven
With one portentous glare.
Behold the fragrant smoke in many a fold
Ascending, floats along the fiery sky,
And hangeth visible on high,
A dark and waving canopy.
’T is the dirge of death!
At once ten thousand drums begin,
With one long thunder-peal the ear assailing;
Ten thousand voices then join in,
And with one deep and general din
Pour their wild wailing.
The song of praise is drowned
Amid the deafening sound;
You hear no more the trumpet’s tone,
You hear no more the mourner’s moan,
Though the trumpet’s breath and the dirge of death
Swell with commingled force the funeral yell.
But rising over all in one acclaim
Is heard the echoed and re-echoed name,
From all that countless rout;
Arvalan! Arvalan!
Arvalan! Arvalan!
Ten times ten thousand voices in one shout
Call Arvalan! The overpowering sound
From house to house repeated rings about,
From tower to tower rolls round.
Their bald heads shining to the torches’ ray,
The Brahmins lead the way,
Chanting the funeral song.
And now at once they shout,
Arvalan! Arvalan!
With quick rebound of sound,
All in accordant cry,
Arvalan! Arvalan!
The universal multitude reply.
In vain ye thunder on his ear the name;
Would ye awake the dead?
Borne upright in his palankeen,
There Arvalan is seen!
A glow is on his face,—a lively red;
It is the crimson canopy
Which o’er his cheek a reddening shade hath shed;
He moves,—he nods his head,—
But the motion comes from the bearers’ tread,
As the body, borne aloft in state,
Sways with the impulse of its own dead weight.
Nor joining in the ritual song,
Nor calling the dear name;
With head deprest and funeral vest,
And arms enfolded on his breast,
Silent, and lost in thought he moves along.
King of the world, his slaves unenvying now
Behold their wretched Lord; rejoiced they see
The mighty Rajah’s misery;
That Nature in his pride hath dealt the blow,
And taught the Master of Mankind to know
Even he himself is man, and not exempt from woe.
Young Azla, young Nealliny, are seen!
Their widow-robes of white,
With gold and jewels bright,
Each like an Eastern queen.
Woe! woe! around their palankeen,
As on a bridal day,
With symphony and dance and song,
Their kindred and their friends come on.
The dance of sacrifice! the funeral song!
And next the victim slaves in long array
Richly bedight to grace the fatal day,
Move onward to their death;
The clarions’ stirring breath
Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold,
And swells the woven gold,
That on the agitated air
Flutters and glitters to the torch’s glare.
Then, side by side, by bowmen guarded, came;
O wretched father! O unhappy child!
Them were all eyes of all the throng exploring,—
Is this the daring man
Who raised his fatal hand at Arvalan?
Is this the wretch condemned to feel
Kehama’s dreadful wrath?
Then were all hearts of all the throng deploring;
For not in that innumerable throng
Was one who loved the dead; for who could know
What aggravated wrong
Provoked the desperate blow!
In ordered files the torches flow along,
One ever-lengthening line of gliding light;
Far—far behind,
Rolls on the undistinguishable clamor,
Of horn and trump and tambour;
Incessant as the roar
Of streams which down the wintry mountain pour,
And louder than the dread commotion
Of breakers on a rocky shore,
When the winds rage over the waves,
And ocean to the tempest raves.
Where winding on their way below,
Deep and strong the waters flow.
Here doth the funeral pile appear,
With myrrh and ambergris bestrewed,
And built of precious sandalwood.
They cease their music and their outcry here,
Gently they rest the bier;
They wet the face of Arvalan,
No sign of life the sprinkled drops excite;
They feel his breast,—no motion there;
They feel his lips,—no breath;
For not with feeble nor with erring hand
The brave avenger dealt the blow of death.
Then with a doubling peal and deeper blast
The tambours and the trumpets sound on high,
And with a last and loudest cry
They call on Arvalan.