Page:Panchatantra.djvu/155

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146
THE PANCHATANTRA

she, "don't mention this dreadful place. Here is the ocean near at hand. His tide might some day make a long reach and lick away my babies."

But the plover answered: "Sweetheart, he knows me, he knows Sprawl. Surely the great ocean cannot show such enmity to me. Did you never hear this?

What man is rash enough to take
The gleaming crest-jewel from a snake?
Or stirs the wrath of one so dread
His glance may strike his victim dead?

However summer heat distresses
In wild and treeless wildernesses,
Who, after all, would seek the shade
By some rogue elephant's body made?

And again:

When morning's chilly breezes blow
With whirling particles of snow,
What man with sense of value sure,
Employs for cold the water cure?

To visit Death what man desires,
So wakes the lion's sleeping fires,
Who, tired from slaying elephants,
Lies in a temporary trance?

Who dares to visit and defy
The death-god? Dares the fearless cry—
I challenge you to single strife;
If power be yours, pray take my life?

What son of man, with simple wit,
Defies the fire, and enters it—
The smokeless flame that terrifies,
Whose tongues by hundreds lick the skies?"