"Kaikeyee"

Kaikeyee!

O hapless Queen! Ill-fated child of Fame!
Thy husband's love, his dotage-born obsession,
How well thy life illumes the dreadful lesson
That flesh-bound love is one consuming flame!
O dauntless soul in woman's fragile frame,
In days of yore thy love for lord did burn
Thine inborn fears, thy sex to ashes turn
The while thy daring snatched the gods from shame
Of dire defeat; anew thy love for son,
Thy love to see him all Ayodhya's king,
Did burn the queen the wife in thee! How brief
Is joy in earth-bound love! How fraught with grief
This luring flame, this soul consuming thing!
How grave its toll! How dire the reward won!
A righteous monarch's death of broken heart,
A woman's anguish lorn of lord and child,
A kingdom's mourn and yearn for heir exil'd,
All these thou wrought! And yet were these no part
Of plan of thy devise! The ruthless art
That rained red ruin o'er the Raghu land
Was work of Fate, whose woeful vengeful hand
Sent e'en thy dream to crown thy son athwart!
Thy wiles brought gall to all and joy to none!
Misguided queen! Ambition's thoughtless fool!
The hunch, thy mentor, hell's vile minion
That fanned a mother's ‘spiring spark to flame,
That fiend in guise and guile, thy friend in name
Was imp of Fate, none else! And thou, her tool!
Relentless Fate when she did turn her face
In wrath upon the Raghu clan and land,
Her blackest look she cast, her gravest hand
She laid on him, thy son, whose prowess, grace
And wisdom marked him noblest of his race;
Ador'd of parent, brother, kin and spouse,
Admir'd of friend, afeard of foe, his house
Ne'er gender'd greater son! Yet fast apace
Did Fate's dire darts descend his sinless head!
Fate's femine freaks, alack, were ever so:
The guilty left unscathed, the guileless bled
Of heart or burnt of soul! At one fell blow
Was he bereft of sire and kin! And thou
His best loved mother loos'd this flood of woe!
Calamity's a touchstone to assay
True worth of human kind. Whilst craven hearts
Will rage and rave, the brave their nobler parts
Convoke and calmly brunt their woe. The sway
Of grief or vengeful ire unveils the way
Of churls! The son, had he been base of breed
Or faint of heart or mean of soul, thy deed
Had surely charg'd his reeling brain to slay,
Nay tear thee limb from limb, to vent his ire,
And venge a widowed mother's broken heart,
A people's grief and death of godly sire!
But e'en a madden'd woman's monster crime
Could scarcely ruffle his soul serene, sublime!
Sore Pity ‘twas replac'd Revenge's part.
In Pity's light it is that God doth view
All human sins; and Pity's light doth shed
No purple rays of Pride; nor Ire's blood-red
Nor Envy's green nor Fear's jaundiced hue
Mars Pity's flame whose lambent limpid blue
Reveals the God in man! The Burden grave
Prince Bharata in pity bore to save
His mother's burning soul in kindly dew
Of great Kausalya's forgiveness, did start
A wail of woe for all eternity!
And cleft in twain to con thy life, my heart,
Like Marg'ret yawns athirst for Swathi's rain,
Did gasp agape and froze my tears ofpain
Into this song of soul-deep sympathy.