ହନୁମତ୍ପ୍ରସାଦସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

A poet's hymn, and what it asks for throughout is not protection but speech. Its first verse sets him in the Ashoka grove as the adept of words, skilled in the art of making the lotus of Vaidehi's heart open, and asks him to give us here the sweetness of words. The second is the childhood, told for the same purpose: taking the lord of lights as he rose in the sky for a fruit of the wish-tree, ripe and sweet, he set out to seize it while he was still coming out of his mother — may he grant a flood to my speech. The third remembers what happened when the Wind withdrew, the whole world left stiff and deaf and helpless, and the powers in heaven casting about for words that would appease him. Its long ornate metre is as much the point as its matter.