3
Then ensconced in thy liana-
Swing, with thumb to nose deride him.
Thou hast scandalized full other
Brahmins not of Ind beside him.”
II.
“Somewhere in thy jungles Hindostani
Relics of a giant city sadly
Brood o’er memories of departed glory,
Splendors now collapsing to the tomb,
Dreaming of the throngs that filled its churches,
Of the swarms of worship-loving people
And the palaces of haughty Nabobs,
Jewelled thrones and flashing presence-room.
Minarets, pagodas, all in ruin
And dismantled seats of mighty rajahs,
Hide beneath the fans of wavy palm groves
And the rank banana’s spacious leaves
In a heavy pall of fronds and flowers,
Pitiful the virgin woodland shrouds them
And a veil of hundred-fold lianas
O’er the face of perished glory weaves
All among that web of airy tendrils
Like a saucy gang of agile sailors
In their rigging, now of sportive apes a
Family their giddy dances run,
Sacred and descendants of the fabled
Hanuman, with whom the great one Vishnu,
Taking on himself the form of Rama,
Lanek, isle of giants, proudly won.
