So he lived,
Degraded from his caste. Old knotted rags
Served as his dress; his face and arms and feet
With dust and ashes from the funeral piles
Begrimed; his hands defiled with putrid flesh
From contact with the bodies of the dead.
So neither day nor night he ceased from toil.
And twelve months passed--twelve weary months, which seemed
To his grief-stricken mind a hundred years;
And then at last, worn out, the best of kings
Lay down to rest; and as upon his couch
All motionless in sleep he lay, he saw
A wondrous vision. By the power divine
He seemed to wear another form,--a form
Both new and strange,--and in that form to pay
The vow. Twelve years of expiation passed
With difficulty. Then within himself
King Hari??chandra thought: "So too will I,
When I am freed from hence, perform my vows
With generous freedom." Forthwith he was born
As a Pukkasa; while a place was found
For him among the dead, and funeral rites
Were ordered as his task. Thus seven years
Were passed; then to the burying-place was brought
A Br??hman seeking sepulture: in life
He had been poor, but honest; and the king,
Though he knew this--the dead man's poverty
And his uprightness--pressed his friends to pay
The funeral dues.
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