Rama in Quest of Sita

Finding nowhere Sita Rama calls:
Come Sita dear, where have you gone?
And over his breast misery rolls;
With a heavy heart he draws hot moan.

He runs in haste through dense forest
In search of Sita everywhere;
Then tired he sits to take some rest,
And gets up again in black despair.

He asks trees, flowers and fountain:
Where Sita is gone could they tell?
With his reeling mind and surging pain
He totters on earth and leans to fall.

His long-drawn cry all sky rends
So Laxhman soothes him again and again;
He lifts him gently by his hands,
And wipe his tears that begin to rain.

He turns his eyes this way that way,
She might appear in some direction,
Yet no trace of her and slips the day:
Louder and louder grows his lementation.

Then he walks to river and water-bird.
With tear-bathed face he asks them there:
O my Sita is missing have you heard?
O tell me, tell me something declare.

O all are mute, none gives me clue
Of my darling where has she gone?
Heart-broken he thinks now what to do
Rubbing hands in despair he feels alone.

Game of hide and seek give up dear,
Show your dearest face or I will die.
He calls her aloud pouring his tear:
Hear, hear my heart-rending cry.

Who has eaten his Sita, some lion or devil
He whines in despair like a sickly child;
In the deep dark woods her who can kill,
With a puzzled look he grows all wild.

Now he thinks of Sita's physical mould
Her silky hair, her rosy lips, her jet-black eyes,
Her orbed breasts, her glossy skin finer than gold
Are so well-cut in shape and size.

And her dainty waist and majestic gait,
Her loveful words like music fall;
Her laments over his cruel Fate-
Her memory shatters his body whole.

O her sleek frame with tender feet,
Bare-footed she walks with no complaint;
She is born to sit on a royal seat;
He thinks and weeps neath misery’s weight.

His gleaming tears from his swollen eyes
Flow down his cheeks like a silent rill
Which sadden the hearts of earth and skies;
He roams for Sita in woods and hill.

As evening draws he turns to hermitage
Along with Laxhman who’s equally sad,
He looks on his face and empty gaze
Whose bitterest grief turns him mad.

Dark circles appear under his eyes,
His streaming tears discolour his face;
For Sita's dear his all soul cries;
He combs out all woods new where to trace?

Deep silence prevails in the dwelling-place;
Rama sees Sita’s pallet and unfolds-
I’ll find her out this Laxman says:
And in his arms he him enfolds.

He sees empty hut of weeds and leaves;
Touches empty walls and empty ground,
Then wipes his tears with palms and sleeves,
But no Sita's face not her footfalls sound.

Red sun sinks low behind mountain-chain;
Rama looks through window with vacant eyes
Calling Sita, Sita, time and again,
And falls to earth till next sunrise.