6
Thou, around whose brow primeval legend
Wove a starry crown, whose fame
Holy Ganges, snow-clad Himalaya
Echoed, at whose sacred name
Pious Ind low looted, rude born sailors
Now art made the butt of: rabble railers
Taunt and pelt thee with the words of shame.
Thee who wont’st to be the bright exemplar
To all creatures of thy race,
And who knewest naught but warm affection
In a mother’s fond embrace,
And the love her heart alone could offer:
Now the stinging lash constrains to proffer
Servile bows and tricks of little grace.
Thus the high-born captive sailed the ocean
Many a night and many a day;
Flashed around him like a spangled dream-land
Foreign shores in bright array,
Till, at length, the vessel reached the clouded
Northworld and by Albion’s mists enshrouded,
Moored within the echoing harbour lay.
There within the sailors’ reeking tavern,
On a mat of plaited cane,
Crouched the ape, disconsolate, when o’er him
Those colossi once again
Waved their spreading boughs—and lo! the lotus
Through the serried gloom flashed out remote as
Some wild eyeball from th’ enchanted main.
