'Were yon stone alone in question, this would please me well,'
Mahmood said; 'but, with the block there, I my truth must sell.
'Wealth and rule slip down with Fortune, as her wheel turns round;
He who keeps his faith, he only cannot be discrowned.
'Little were a change of station, loss of life or crown,
But the wreck were past retrieving if the Man fell down.'
So his iron mace he lifted, smote with might and main,
And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, burst in twain.
Luck obeys the downright striker; from the hollow core,
Fifty times the Brahmins' offer deluged all the floor.
INVITA MINERVA
The Bardling came where by a river grew
The pennoned reeds, that, as the west-wind blew,
Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew
What music slept enchanted in each stem,
Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,
And with wise lips enlife it through and through.
The Bardling thought, 'A pipe is all I need;
Once I have sought me out a clear, smooth reed,
And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed
To breathe such strains as, yonder mid the rocks,
The strange youth blows, that tends Admetus' flocks.
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