Page:Poems PiattVol2.djvu/152

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AN EAST-INDIAN FAIRY STORY. [FROM "OLD DECCAN DAYS."]
All day she was yellow and grey and thin;
All day she was troubled with time and tears;
All day she was dressed in the withered skin
Of a woman who lived a hundred years.

All day she begged, through the heavy heat,
For a drop of water, a grain of rice;
But she sat, in the twilight, still and sweet,
Close to the leaves of the blossoming spice.

At a fairy fountain dim in the air,
In a garment white as a priestess wears,
With a lotus-bud in her lovely hair,
And her hand in the water, she said her prayers.

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