Then Angad spake: 'We Vánars
Have searched each valley, cave, and dell,
And hill, and brook, and dark recess,
And tangled wood, and wilderness.
But all in vain: no eye has seen
The robber or the Maithil queen.
A dreary time has passed away,
And stern is he we all obey.
Come, cast your grief and sloth aside:
Again be every effort tried;
So haply may our toil attain
The sweet success that follows pain.
Laborious effort, toil, and skill,
The firm resolve, the constant will
Secure at last the ends we seek:
Hence, O my friends, I boldly speak.
Once more then, noble hearts, once more
Let us to-day this wood explore,
And, languor and despair subdued,
Purchase success with toil renewed.
Sugríva king austere,
And Ráma's wrath we needs must fear.
Come, Vánarsye think it wise,
And do the thing that I advise'
Then Gandhamádan replied
With lips that toil and thirst had dried;
'Obey his words, for wise and true
Is all that he has counselled you.
Come, let your hosts their toil renew
And search each grove and desert through,
Each towering hill and forest glade.
By lake and brook and white cascade,
Till every spot, as our great lord
Commanded, be again explored.'
Uprose the Vánarsand all,
Obedient to the chieftain's call,
And over the southern region sped
Where Vindhya's tangled forests spread.
They clomb that hill that towers on high
Like a huge cloud in autumn's sky,
Where many a cavern yawns, and streaks
Of radiant silver deck the peaks.
In eager search they wandered through
The forests where the Lodh trees grew,
Where the dark leaves were thick and green,
But found not Ráma's darling queen.
Then faint with toil, their hearts depressed,
Descending from the mountain's crest,
Their weary limbs a while to ease
They lay beneath the spreading trees.
381:1 The Bengal recension--Corrosions edition-- calls this Asur or demon the son of Márícha