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Sugriva spake in words like these:
'Now, Vanar lords, the occasion seize.
For now, of sons and brothers reft,
To Ravan little hope is left:
And if our host his gates assail
His weak defence will surely fail.'

At dead of night the Vanar bands
Rushed on with torches in their hands.
Scared by the coming of the host
Each giant warder left his post.
Where'er the Vanar legions came
Their way was marked with hostile flame
That spread in fury to devour
Palace and temple, gate and tower.
Down came the walls and porches, down
Came stately piles that graced the town.
In many a house the fire was red,
On sandal wood and aloe fed.
And scorching flames in billows rolled
O'er diamonds and pearls and gold.
On cloth of wool, on silk brocade,
On linen robes their fury preyed.
Wheels, poles and yokes were burned, and all
The coursers' harness in the stall;
And elephants' and chariots' gear,
The sword, the buckler, and the spear.
Scared by the crash of falling beams,
Mid lamentations, groans and screams

Forth rushed the giants through the flames
And with them dragged bewildered dames,
Each, with o'erwhelming terror wild,
Still clamping to her breast a child.
The swift fire from a cloud of smoke
Through many a gilded lattice broke,
And, melting pearl and coral, rose
O'er balconies and porticoes.
The startled crane and peacock screamed
As with strange light the courtyard gleamed,
And fierce unusual glare was thrown.
Cm shrinking wood and heated stone.
From burning stall and stable freed
Rushed frantic elephant and steed.
And goaded by the driving blaze
Fled wildly tbrough the crowded ways.
As earth with fervent heat will glow
When comes her final overthrow;
From gate to gate, from court to spire
Proud Lanka was one blaze of fire,
And every headland, rock and bay
Shone bright a hundred leagues away.
Forth, blinded by the heat and flame
Ran countless giants huge of frame;
And, mustering for fierce attack,
The Vanars charged to drive them back,
While shout and scream and roar and cry
Reechoed through the earth and sky.
There Rama stood with stength renewed,
And ever, as the foe he viewed,
Shaking the distant regions rang
His mighty bow鈥檚 tremendous clang.
Then through the gates Nikummbha hied,
And Kumbha by his brother鈥檚 side,
Sent forth鈥攖he bravest and the best鈥�
To battle by the king鈥檚 behest.
There fought the chiefs in open field,
And Angad fell and Dwivid reeled.
Sugriva saw: by rage impelled
He crushed the bow which Kumbha held.
About his foe Sugriva wound
His arms, and, heaving from the ground
The giant hurled him o'er the bank;
And deep beneath the sea he sank.
Like mandar hill with furious swell
Up leapt the waters where he fell.
Again he rose: he sprang to land
And raised on high his threatening hand:
Full on Sugriva鈥檚 chest it came
And shook the Vanar鈥檚 massy frame,
But on the wounded bone he broke
His wrist鈥攕o furious was the stroke.
With force that naught could stay or check,
Sugriva smote him neath the neck.
The fierce blow crashed through flesh and bone
And Kumbha lay in death o'erthrown.
Nikumbha saw his brother die,
And red with fury flashed his eye.
He dashed with mighty sway and swing

His axe against the Vanar king;
But shattered on that living rock
It split in fragments at the shock.
Sugriva, rising to the blow,
Raised his huge hand and smote his foe.
And in the dust the giant lay
Gasping in blood his soul away. 聽^[1]

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

I have briefly despatched Kumbha and Nikumbha, each of whom has in the text a long Canto to himself. When they fall Ravan sends forth Makaraksha or Crocodile-Eye, the son of Khara who was slain by Rama in the forest before the abduction of Sita. The account of his sallying forth, of his battle with Rama and of his death by the fiery dart of that hero occupies two Cantos which I entirely pass over. Indrajit again comes forth and, rendered invisible by his magic art slays countless Vanars with his unerring arrows. He retires to the city and returns bearing in his chariot an effigy of Sita, the work of magic, weeping and wailing by his side. He grasps the lovely image by the hair and cuts it down with his scimitar in the sight of the enraged Hanuman and all the Vanar host. At last after much fighting of the usual kind Indrajit鈥檚 chariot is broken in pieces, his charioteer is slain, and he himself falls by Lakshman鈥檚 hand, to the inexpressible delight of the high-souled saints, the nymphs of heaven aud other celestial beings.