among,
Meas’ring the pulsing of each lonely star,
And sounding ceaselessly from sphere to sphere
That note of immortality
That whispers in the sorrow of the sea,
And in the sunrise, and the noonday’s rest,
And triumphs in the wild wind’s meek surcease,
And in the sad soul’s yearning unexpressed,
And unexpressive for perpetual peace.

But the loveliest of Lehna Singh’s possessions was Moti, his daughter and only child, the fame of whose beauty had even reached Atma in his mountain home.  Of her he had dreamt through boyhood’s years, and a happy consciousness of her proximity foreshadowed the enchanted hour when he was to behold her and own that his fondest fancies were to her loveliness as darkness to noonday.  Her name he had heard whispered in the gay throng of her father’s guests, on the memorable first evening of his arrival there; but, strange to tell, next day, when these first hours in a palace seemed to his excited imagination a dream in which mingled in wildest confusion the glitter of diamonds, the perfume of a thousand flowers, the revel of dazzling colors, the bewildering music of unknown instruments, and the intoxication of wonder and bliss, there rang through all only one articulate voice, sounding as if from some leafy ambush amid vague laughter and murmurs of speech, saying: 

“But I tell you that Rajah Lal Singh means to pluck the rose of Lehna Singh’s garden!”

CHAPTER IV.

Atma loved to wander apart.  One day he penetrated to a secluded court, whose beauty and silence charmed him more than anything he had hitherto seen.  It was Moti’s garden.

     “High in air the fountain flung
     Its living gems, on sunbeams strung
     They wreathed and shook the mists among;
     A thousand roses audience held,
     For floral state the place was meet,
     With blissful light and joy replete,
     And depths of sweetness unrevealed.

     Glittered and sparkled the revelling spray,
     Swelled and receded its silvery lay,
     Rustled the roses in fervid array,
     In fragrance declaring their costly acclaim,
     Wafting on soft winds the redolent fame
     Of fantasy, fountain, and tuneful refrain.

     Joy, Happiness, and Bliss had here
     Alighted when from Eden driven,
     Poor wanderers of far other sphere
     They languished for their native heaven;
     And lingering they glamoured all the place,
     The flowers bloomed in airs of Paradise,
     That lulled the days to dreams of changeless peace. 
     No marvel were it if to mortal eyes
     This garden seemed the threshold of the skies.

But fountain and roses and glittering spray,
Ambrosial converse and redolent lay
Saddened and dimmed in the radiant day,
Unbroken the yellow sunbeams streamed,
As ever the flashing jewels gleamed. 
But a shadow fell
And a silent spell
In homage of one who was fairer than they.