HYMN IX.

1. WE as thy friends have chosen thee, mortals a God, to be our help,

The Waters' Child, the blessed, the resplendent One, victorious and beyond compare.

2 Since thou delighting in the woods hast gone unto thy mother streams,

Not to be scorned, Agni, is that return of thine when from afar thou now art here.

3 O'er pungent smoke host thou prevailed, and thus art thou benevolent.

Some go before, and others round about thee sit, they in whose friendship thou hast place.

4 Him who had passed beyond his foes, beyond continual pursuits, Him the unerring Ones, observant, found in floods, couched like a lion in his lair.

5 Him wandering at his own free will, Agni here hidden from our view,

Him Matarisvan brought to us from far away produced by friction, from the Gods.

6 O Bearer of Oblations, thus mortals received thee from the Gods,

Whilst thou, the Friend of man, guardest each sacrifice with thine own power, Most Youthful One.

7 Amid thy wonders this is good, yea, to the simple is it clear,

When gathered round about thee, Agni, lie the herds where thou art kindled in the morn.

8 Offer to him who knows fair rites, who burns with purifying glow,

Swift envoy, active, ancient, and adorable: serve ye the God attentively.

9 Three times a hundred Gods and thrice a thousand, and three times ten and nine have worshipped Agni,

For him spread sacred grass, with oil bedewed him, and stablished him as Priest and Sacrificer.