śrī bhadrakālyaṣṭakam

Eight verses in a dense and heavily alliterative measure, each closing on the same words: I worship Shri Bhadrakali. The second names the deed she is known by in the south, the head of the demon Darika split in play, and sets the redness of her lip against it. Others give her the family — mother of the elephant-faced one and of Bahuleya, keeper of company with Matanga, crusher of Shumbha and Nishumbha, worshipped by the lotus-born. The manner is as much the point as the matter, every line packed with rhyme and internal echo until the sense has to be picked out of the sound. The closing verse prescribes it for the morning and calls it a wind against the massed cloud of disease and wrongdoing.