Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834/The Zenana - Interlude 2

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Deep silence chained the listeners round,
When, lo, another plaintive sound,
Came from the river’s side, and there
They saw a girl with loosened hair

Seat her beneath a peepul tree,
Where swung her gurrah* mournfully,
Filled with the cool and limpid wave,
An offering o’er some dear one’s grave.
At once Zilara caught the tone,
And made it, as she sung, her own.

⁠* Gurrah.—The Gurrah is the water-jar which the Hindoo women poise so gracefully on their heads. Heber mentions, that they hang gurrahs on the peepul, a species of sacred tree; and much planted about graves, that the spirits of the deceased may drink the holy waves of the Ganges.