Chapter II: Part 2

How I have sought you in the crowded cities!
I have been mad, they say, for many days.
I know not how I came here, to the valley,
What fate has led me, through what doubtful ways.

Somewhere I see my sword has done good service,
Some one I killed, who, smiling, used your name,
But in what country? Nay, I have forgotten,
All thought is shrivelled in my heart's hot flame.

Where are you now, Delight, and where your beauty,
Your subtle curls, and laughing, changeful face?
Bound, bruised and naked (dear God, grant me patience),
And sold in Cabul in the market-place.

I asked of you of all men. Who could tell me?
Among so many captured, sold, or slain,
What fate was yours? (Ah, dear God, grant me patience,
My heart is burnt, is burnt, with fire and pain.)

Oh, lost Delight! my heart is almost breaking,
My sword is broken and my feet are sore,
The people look at me and say in passing,
"He will not leave the village any more."

For as the evening falls, the fever rises,
With frantic thoughts careering through the brain,
Wild thoughts of you. (Ah, dear God, grant me patience,
My soul is hurt beyond all men call pain.)

I lie alone, beneath the Almond blossoms,
And see the white snow melting on the hills
Till Khorassan is gay with water-courses,
Glad with the tinkling sound of running rills,

And well I know that when the fragile petals
Fall softly, ere the first green leaves appear,
(Ah, for these last few days, God, grant me patience,)
Since Delight is not, I shall not be, here!

Unforgotten

Do you ever think of me? you who died
Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled,
With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled
Lying alone, aside,
Do you ever think of me, left in the light,
From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

I am faithful always: I do not say
That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old
To lesser kisses are always cold;
Had you wished for this in its narrow sense
Our love perhaps had been less intense;
But as we held faithfulness, you and I,
I am faithful always, as you who lie,
Asleep for ever, beneath the grass,
While the days and nights and the seasons pass,--
Pass away.

I keep your memory near my heart,
My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star,
Till long life over, I too depart
To the infinite night where perhaps you are.

Oh, are you anywhere? Loved so well!
I would rather know you alive in Hell
Than think your beauty is nothing now,
With its deep dark eyes and tranquil brow
Where the hair fell softly. Can this be true
That nothing, nowhere, exists of you?
Nothing, nowhere, oh, loved so well
I have _never_ forgotten.
Do you still keep
Thoughts of me through your dreamless sleep?

Oh, gone from me! lost in Eternal Night,
Lost Star of light,
Risen splendidly, set so soon,
Through the weariness of life's afternoon
I dream of your memory yet.
My loved and lost, whom I could not save,
My youth went down with you to the grave,
Though other planets and stars may rise,
I dream of your soft and sorrowful eyes
And I cannot forget.

Song of Faiz Ulla

Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather,
Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent together
We, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content.

Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress,
We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wine
Lessening the fulness of delight,--
Some quivering note of human pain,
Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night,

Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hours
We spent among the Jasmin flowers.

Story of Lilavanti

They lay the slender body down
With all its wealth of wetted hair,
Only a daughter of the town,
But very young and slight and fair.

The eyes, whose light one cannot see,
Are sombre doubtless, like the tresses,
The mouth's soft curvings seem to be
A roseate series of caresses.

And where the skin has all but dried
(The air is sultry in the room)
Upon her breast and either side,
It shows a soft and amber bloom.

By women here, who knew her life,
A leper husband, I am told,
Took all this loveliness to wife
When it was barely ten years old.

And when the child in shocked dismay
Fled from the hated husband's care
He caught and tied her, so they say,
Down to his bedside by her hair.

To some low quarter of the town,
Escaped a second time, she flew;
Her beauty brought her great renown
And many lovers here she knew,

When, as the mystic Eastern night
With purple shadow filled the air,
Behind her window framed in light,
She sat with jasmin in her hair.

At last she loved a youth, who chose
To keep this wild flower for his own,
He in his garden set his rose
Where it might bloom for him alone.

Cholera came; her lover died,
Want drove her to the streets again,
And women found her there, who tried
To turn her beauty into gain.

But she who in those garden ways
Had learnt of Love, would now no more
Be bartered in the market place
For silver, as in days before.

That former life she strove to change;
She sold the silver off her arms,
While all the world grew cold and strange
To broken health and fading charms.

Till, finding lovers, but no friend,
Nor any place to rest or hide,
She grew despairing at the end,
Slipped softly down a well and died.

And yet, how short, when all is said,
This little life of love and tears!
Her age, they say, beside her bed,
To-day is only fifteen years.

The Garden by the Bridge

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together
Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them
Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings;
Poor beasts, and poorer men. Nay, who shall blame them?
Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things.

The world is horrible and I am lonely,
Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom
And find forgetfulness, remembering only
Your face beside me in the scented gloom.

Nay, do not shrink! I am not here for passion,
I crave no love, only a little rest,
Although I would my face lay, lover's fashion,
Against the tender coolness of your breast.

I am so weary of the Curse of Living
The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears.
Surely, if life were any God's free giving,
He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears.

Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying,
Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past.
Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing,
But know that death _must_ win the game at last.

As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter,
The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings,--
As the pink Lotus floats on azure water,
Innocent of the mud from whence it springs.

You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow,
The fear and pain set close around your way,
Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow,
Living with joy each hour of glad to-day.

I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet,
How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?)
So calmly careless of the rush and riot
That rages round is seething everywhere.

You do not understand. You think your beauty
Does but inflame my senses to desire,
Till all you hold as loyalty and duty,
Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire.

You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving
As though the whole world's sorrow eat my heart,
I come to gaze upon your face believing
Its beauty is as ointment to the smart.

Lie still and let me in my desolation
Caress the soft loose hair a moment's span.
Since Loveliness is Life's one Consolation,
And love the only Lethe left to man.

Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower,
Beside the river where the fireflies pass,
One little dusky, all consoling hour
Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass

Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender,
Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress,
Against your heart, so innocent and tender,
A little Love and some Forgetfulness.

Fate Knows no Tears

Just as the dawn of Love was breaking
Across the weary world of grey,
Just as my life once more was waking
As roses waken late in May,
Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,
Stepped in and carried you away.

Memories have I none in keeping
Of times I held you near my heart,
Of dreams when we were near to weeping
That dawn should bid us rise and part;
Never, alas, I saw you sleeping
With soft closed eyes and lips apart,

Breathing my name still through your dreaming.--
Ah! had you stayed, such things had been!
But Fate, unheeding human scheming,
Serenely reckless came between--
Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleaming
Unseared by all the sorrow seen.

Ah! well-beloved, I never told you,
I did not show in speech or song,
How at the end I longed to fold you
Close in my arms; so fierce and strong
The longing grew to have and hold you,
You, and you only, all life long.

They who know nothing call me fickle,
Keen to pursue and loth to keep.
Ah, could they see these tears that trickle
From eyes erstwhile too proud to weep.
Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle,
While pain and sorrow stand and reap!

Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lie
The hopes that rose-like round me grew,
The lights are low, and more than lonely
This life I lead apart from you.
Come back, come back! I want you only,
And you who loved me never knew.

You loved me, pleaded for compassion
On all the pain I would not share;
And I in weary, halting fashion
Was loth to listen, long to care;
But now, dear God! I faint with passion
For your far eyes and distant hair.

Yes, I am faint with love, and broken
With sleepless nights and empty days;
I want your soft words fiercely spoken,
Your tender looks and wayward ways--
Want that strange smile that gave me token
Of many things that no man says.

Cold was I, weary, slow to waken
Till, startled by your ardent eyes,
I felt the soul within me shaken
And long-forgotten senses rise;
But in that moment you were taken,
And thus we lost our Paradise!

Farewell, we may not now recover
That golden "Then" misspent, passed by,
We shall not meet as loved and lover
Here, or hereafter, you and I.
My time for loving you is over,
Love has no future, but to die.

And thus we part, with no believing
In any chance of future years.
We have no idle self-deceiving,
No half-consoling hopes and fears;
We know the Gods grant no retrieving
A wasted chance. Fate knows no tears.

Verses: Faiz Ulla

Just in the hush before dawn
A little wistful wind is born.
A little chilly errant breeze,
That thrills the grasses, stirs the trees.
And, as it wanders on its way,
While yet the night is cool and dark,
The first carol of the lark,--
Its plaintive murmurs seem to say
"I wait the sorrows of the day."

Two Songs by Sitara, of Kashmir

Beloved! your hair was golden
As tender tints of sunrise,
As corn beside the River
In softly varying hues.
I loved you for your slightness,
Your melancholy sweetness,
Your changeful eyes, that promised
What your lips would still refuse.

You came to me, and loved me,
Were mine upon the River,
The azure water saw us
And the blue transparent sky;
The Lotus flowers knew it,
Our happiness together,
While life was only River,
Only love, and you and I.

Love wakened on the River,
To sounds of running water,
With silver Stars for witness
And reflected Stars for light;
Awakened to existence,
With ripples for first music
And sunlight on the River
For earliest sense of sight.

Love grew upon the River
Among the scented flowers,
The open rosy flowers
Of the Lotus buds in bloom--
Love, brilliant as the Morning,
More fervent than the Noon-day,
And tender as the Twilight
In its blue transparent gloom.

Love died upon the River!
Cold snow upon the mountains,
The Lotus leaves turned yellow
And the water very grey.
Our kisses faint and falter,
The clinging hands unfasten,
The golden time is over
And our passion dies away.

Away. To be forgotten,
A ripple on the River,
That flashes in the sunset,
That flashed,--and died away.

Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat
Afar, afloat
On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light;
Hear the sound of the straining wood
Like a broken sob
Of a heart's distress,
Loving misunderstood.

She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
"How to wait through the moments' space
Till I see the light of my lover's face?"

Throb, throb, throb,
The sound dies down the stream
Till it only clings at the senses' edge
Like a half-remembered dream.
Doubtless, he in the silence lies,
His fair face turned to the tender skies,
Starlight touching his sleeping eyes.
While his boat caught in the thickset sedge
And the waters round it gurgle and sob,
Or floats set free on the river's tide,
Oars laid aside.

She is awake and knows no rest,
Passion dies and is dispossessed
Of his brief, despotic power.
But the Brain, once kindled, would still be afire
Were the whole world pasture to its desire,
And all of love, in a single hour,--
A single wine cup, filled to the brim,
Given to slake its thirst.

Some there are who are thus-wise cursed
Times that follow fulfilled desire
Are of all their hours the worst.
They find no Respite and reach no Rest,
Though passion fail and desire grow dim,
No assuagement comes from the thing possessed
For possession feeds the fire.

"Oh, for the life of the bright hued things
Whose marriage and death are one,
A floating fusion on golden wings.
Alit with passion and sun!

"But we who re-marry a thousand times,
As the spirit or senses will,
In a thousand ways, in a thousand climes,
We remain unsatisfied still."

As her lover left her, alone, awake she lies,
With a sleepless brain and weary, half-closed eyes.
She turns her face where the purple silk is spread,
Still sweet with delicate perfume his presence shed.
Her arms remembered his vanished beauty still,
And, reminiscent of clustered curls, her fingers thrill.
While the wonderful, Starlit Night wears slowly on
Till the light of another day, serene and wan,
Pierces the eastern skies.

Palm Trees by the Sea

Love, let me thank you for this!
Now we have drifted apart,
Wandered away from the sea,--
For the fresh touch of your kiss,
For the young warmth of your heart,
For your youth given to me.

Thanks: for the curls of your hair,
Softer than silk to the hand,
For the clear gaze of your eyes.
For yourself: delicate, fair,
Seen as you lay on the sand,
Under the violet skies.

Thanks: for the words that you said,--
Secretly, tenderly sweet,
All through the tropical day,
Till, when the sunset was red,
I, who lay still at your feet,
Felt my life ebbing away,

Weary and worn with desire,
Only yourself could console.
Love let me thank you for this!
For that fierce fervour and fire
Burnt through my lips to my soul
From the white heat of your kiss!

You were the essence of Spring,
Wayward and bright as a flame:
Though we have drifted apart,
Still how the syllables sing
Mixed in your musical name,
Deep in the well of my heart!

Once in the lingering light,
Thrown from the west on the Sea,
Laid you your garments aside,
Slender and goldenly bright,
Glimmered your beauty, set free,
Bright as a pearl in the tide.

Once, ere the thrill of the dawn
Silvered the edge of the sea,
I, who lay watching you rest,--
Pale in the chill of the morn
Found you still dreaming of me
Stilled by love's fancies possessed.

Fallen on sorrowful days,
Love, let me thank you for this,
You were so happy with me!
Wrapped in Youth's roseate haze,
Wanting no more than my kiss
By the blue edge of the sea!

Ah, for those nights on the sand
Under the palms by the sea,
For the strange dream of those days
Spent in the passionate land,
For your youth given to me,
I am your debtor always!

Song by Gulbaz

"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes
No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?

"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented,
Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented.

"Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest,
What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?"

But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight,
Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night.

Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes,
Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses.

And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known!
Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me all alone.

"Since you said the rose-leaf cover sweet protection gave, but slight,
I have found this dear young lover to protect me through the night!"

Kashmiri Song

Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?

Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,
Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,
How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins
Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.

Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat,
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!

Reverie of Ormuz the Persian

Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance,
Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea,
Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence,
Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me.

Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing,
Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled,
Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying,
Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World.

Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence,
Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the Zenith less blue.
Even the ocean lessens the light of its green opalescence,
Since, to my sorrow I loved, loved and grew weary of, you.

Why was our passion so fleeting, why had the flush of your beauty
Only so slender a spell, only so futile a power?
Yet, even thus ever is life, save when long custom or duty
Moulds into sober fruit Love's fragile and fugitive flower.

Fain would my soul have been faithful; never an alien pleasure
Lured me away from the light lit in your luminous eyes,
But we have altered the World as pitiful man has leisure
To criticise, balance, take counsel, assuredly lies.

All through the centuries Man has gathered his flower, and fenced it,
--Infinite strife to attain; infinite struggle to keep,--
Holding his treasure awhile, all Fate and all forces against it,
Knowing it his no more, if ever his vigilance sleep.

But we have altered the World as pitiful man has grown stronger,
So that the things we love are as easily kept as won,
Therefore the ancient fight can engage and detain us no longer,
And all too swiftly, alas, passion is over and done.

Far too speedily now we can gather the coveted treasure,
Enjoy it awhile, be satiated, begin to tire;
And what shall be done henceforth with the profitless after-leisure,
Who has the breath to kindle the ash of a faded fire?

Ah, if it only had lasted! After my ardent endeavour
Came the delirious Joy, flooding my life like a sea,
Days of delight that are burnt on the brain for ever and ever,
Days and nights when you loved, before you grew weary of me.

Softly the sunset decreases dim in the violet Distance,
Even as Love's own fervour has faded away from me,
Leaving the weariness, the monotonous Weight of Existence,--
All the farewells in the world weep in the sound of the sea.

Sunstroke

Oh, straight, white road that runs to meet,
Across green fields, the blue green sea,
You knew the little weary feet
Of my child bride that was to be!

Her people brought her from the shore
One golden day in sultry June,
And I stood, waiting, at the door,
Praying my eyes might see her soon.

With eager arms, wide open thrown,
Now never to be satisfied!
Ere I could make my love my own
She closed her amber eyes and died.

Alas! alas! they took no heed
How frail she was, my little one,
But brought her here with cruel speed
Beneath the fierce, relentless sun.

We laid her on the marriage bed
The bridal flowers in her hand,
A maiden from the ocean led
Only, alas! to die inland.

I walk alone; the air is sweet,
The white road wanders to the sea,
I dream of those two little feet
That grew so tired in reaching me.

Adoration

Who does not feel desire unending
To solace through his daily strife,
With some mysterious Mental Blending,
The hungry loneliness of life?

Until, by sudden passion shaken,
As terriers shake a rat at play,
He finds, all blindly, he has taken
The old, Hereditary way.

Yet, in the moment of communion,
The very heart of passion's fire,
His spirit spurns the mortal union,
"Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!"

* * * *

Oh You, by whom my life is riven,
And reft away from my control,
Take back the hours of passion given!
Love me one moment from your soul.

Although I once, in ardent fashion,
Implored you long to give me this;
(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion)
Your hair to touch, your lips to kiss

Now that your gracious self has granted
The loveliness you hold as naught,
I find, alas! not that I wanted--
Possession has not stifled Thought.

Desire its aim has only shifted,--
Built hopes upon another plan,
And I in love for you have drifted
Beyond all passion known to man.

Beyond all dreams of soft caresses
The solacing of any kiss,--
Beyond the fragrance of your tresses
(Once I had sold my soul for this!)

But now I crave no mortal union
(Thanks for that sweetness in the past);
I need some subtle, strange communion,
Some sense that _I_ join _you_, at last.

Long past the pulse and pain of passion,
Long left the limits of all love,--
I crave some nearer, fuller fashion,
Some unknown way, beyond, above,--

Some infinitely inner fusion,
As Wave with Water; Flame with Fire,--
Let me dream once the dear delusion
That I am You, Oh, Heart's Desire!

Your kindness lent to my caresses
That beauty you so lightly prize,--
The midnight of your sable tresses,
The twilight of your shadowed eyes.

Ah, for that gift all thanks are given!
Yet, Oh, adored, beyond control,
Count all the passionate past forgiven
And love me once, once, from your soul.

Three Songs of Zahir-u-Din

The tropic day's redundant charms
Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
And leaves the landscape grey.
I want to take you in my arms
And kiss your lips away!

I wake with sunshine in my eyes
And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
And all were dreams of you!
Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
That what I dream were true.

The weary day's laborious pace,
I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
To things I loved erstwhile;
The weary sweetness of your face,
Your faint, illusive smile.

The silken softness of your hair
Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
No passions seem to mar,--
Oh, why, since Fate has made you fair,
Must Fortune keep you far?

Thus spent, the day so long and bright
Less hot and brilliant seems,
Till in a final flare of light
The sun withdraws his beams.
Then, in the coolness of the night,
I meet you in my dreams!

Second Song

How much I loved that way you had
Of smiling most, when very sad,
A smile which carried tender hints
Of delicate tints
And warbling birds,
Of sun and spring,
And yet, more than all other thing,
Of Weariness beyond all Words!

None other ever smiled that way,
None that I know,--
The essence of all Gaiety lay,
Of all mad mirth that men may know,
In that sad smile, serene and slow,
That on your lips was wont to play.

It needed many delicate lines
And subtle curves and roseate tints
To make that weary radiant smile;
It flickered, as beneath the vines
The sunshine through green shadow glints
On the pale path that lies below,
Flickered and flashed, and died away,
But the strange thoughts it woke meanwhile
Were wont to stay.

Thoughts of Strange Things you used to know
In dim, dead lives, lived long ago,
Some madly mirthful Merriment
Whose lingering light is yet unspent,--
Some unimaginable Woe,--
Your strange, sad smile forgets these not,
Though you, yourself, long since, forgot!

Third Song, written during Fever

To-night the clouds hang very low,
They take the Hill-tops to their breast,
And lay their arms about the fields.
The wind that fans me lying low,
Restless with great desire for rest,
No cooling touch of freshness yields.

I, sleepless through the stifling heat,
Watch the pale Lightning's constant glow
Between the wide set open doors.
I lie and long amidst the heat,--
The fever that my senses know,
For that cool slenderness of yours.

So delicate and cool you are!
A roseleaf that has lain in snow,
A snowflake tinged with sunset fire.
You do not know, so young you are,
How Fever fans the senses' glow
To uncontrollable desire!

And fills the spaces of the night
With furious and frantic thought,
One would not dare to think by day.
Ah, if you came to me to-night
These visions would be turned to naught,
These hateful dreams be held at bay!

But you are far, and Loneliness
My only lover through the night;
And not for any word or prayer
Would you console my loneliness
Or lend yourself, serene and slight,
And the cool clusters of your hair.

All through the night I long for you,
As shipwrecked men in tropics yearn
For the fresh flow of streams and springs.
My fevered fancies follow you
As dying men in deserts turn
Their thoughts to clear and chilly things.

Such dreams are mine, and such my thirst,
Unceasing and unsatisfied,
Until the night is burnt away
Among these dreams and fevered thirst,
And, through the open doorways, glide
The white feet of the coming day.

The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks

This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.

Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
How hard for me to be harsh to him
With his soft, appealing eyes.

His hair is ruffled upon the stone
And the slender wrists are bound,
So young! and yet he has overthrown
His scores on the battle ground.

Would I were only a slave to-day,
To whom it were right and meet
To wash the stains of the War away,
The dust from the weary feet.

Were I but one of my serving girls
To solace his pain to rest!
Shake out the sand from the soft loose curls,
And hold him against my breast!

Have we such beauty around our Throne?
Such lithe and delicate strength?
Would God that I were the senseless stone
To support his slender length!

I hate those wounds that trouble my sight,
Unknown! how I wish you lay,
Alone in my silken tent to-night
While I charmed the pain away.

I would lay you down on the Royal bed,
I would bathe your wounds with wine,
And setting your feet against my head
Dream you were lover of mine.

My Crown is heavy upon my hair,
The Jewels weigh on my breast,
All I would leave, with delight, to share
Your pale and passionate rest!

But hands grow restless about their swords,
Lips murmur below their breath,
"The Queen is silent too long!" "My Lords,
--Take him away to death!"

Protest: By Zahir-u-Din

Alas! alas! this wasted Night
With all its Jasmin-scented air,
Its thousand stars, serenely bright!
I lie alone, and long for you,
Long for your Champa-scented hair,
Your tranquil eyes of twilight hue;

Long for the close-curved, delicate lips
--Their sinuous sweetness laid on mine--
Here, where the slender fountain drips,
Here, where the yellow roses glow,
Pale in the tender silver shine
The stars across the garden throw.

Alas! alas! poor passionate Youth!
Why must we spend these lonely nights?
The poets hardly speak the truth,--
Despite their praiseful litany,
His season is not all delights
Nor every night an ecstasy!

The very power and passion that make--
_Might_ make--his days one golden dream,
How he must suffer for their sake!
Till, in their fierce and futile rage,
The baffled senses almost deem
They might be happier in old age.

Age that can find red roses sweet,
And yet not crave a rose-red mouth;
Hear Bulbuls, with no wish that feet
Of sweeter singers went his way;
Inhale warm breezes from the South,
Yet never fed his fancy stray.

From some near Village I can hear
The cadenced throbbing of a drum,
Now softly distant, now more near;
And in an almost human fashion,
It, plaintive, wistful, seems to come
Laden with sighs of fitful passion,

To mock me, lying here alone
Among the thousand useless flowers
Upon the fountain's border-stone--
Cold stone, that chills me as I lie
Counting the slowly passing hours
By the white spangles in the sky.

Some feast the Tom-toms celebrate,
Where, close together, side by side,
Gay in their gauze and tinsel state
With lips serene and downcast eyes,
Sit the young bridegroom and his bride,
While round them songs and laughter rise.

They are together; Why are we
So hopelessly, so far apart?
Oh, I implore you, come to me!
Come to me, Solace of mine eyes!
Come Consolation of my heart!
Light of my senses! What replies?

A little, languid, mocking breeze
That rustles through the Jasmin flowers
And stirs among the Tamarind trees;
A little gurgle of the spray
That drips, unheard, though silent hours,
Then breaks in sudden bubbling play.

Wind, have you never loved a rose?
And water, seek you not the Sea?
Why, therefore, mock at my repose?
Is it my fault I am alone
Beneath the feathery Tamarind tree
Whose shadows over me are thrown?

Nay, I am mad indeed, with thirst
For all to me this night denied
And drunk with longing, and accurst
Beyond all chance of sleep or rest,
With love, unslaked, unsatisfied,
And dreams of beauty unpossessed.

Hating the hour that brings you not,
Mad at the space betwixt us twain,
Sad for my empty arms, so hot
And fevered, even the chilly stone
Can scarcely cool their burning pain,--
And oh, this sense of being alone!

Take hence, O Night, your wasted hours,
You bring me not my Life's Delight,
My Star of Stars, my Flower of Flowers!
You leave me loveless and forlorn,
Pass on, most false and futile night,
Pass on, and perish in the Dawn!

Famine Song

Death and Famine on every side
And never a sign of rain,
The bones of those who have starved and died
Unburied upon the plain.
What care have I that the bones bleach white?
To-morrow they may be mine,
But I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!

Cholera, Riot, and Sudden Death,
And the brave red blood set free,
The glazing eye and the failing breath,--
But what are these things to me?
Your breath is quick and your eyes are bright
And your blood is red like wine,
And I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And hold your lips with mine!

I hear the sound of a thousand tears,
Like softly pattering rain,
I see the fever, folly, and fears
Fulfilling man's tale of pain.
But for the moment your star is bright,
I revel beneath its shine,
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!

And you need not deem me over cold,
That I do not stop to think
For all the pleasure this Life may hold
Is on the Precipice brink.
Thought could but lessen my soul's delight,
And to-day she may not pine.
For I shall lie in your arms to-night
And close your lips with mine!

I trust what sorrow the Fates may send
I may carry quietly through,
And pray for grace when I reach the end,
To die as a man should do.
To-day, at least, must be clear and bright,
Without a sorrowful sign,
Because I sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!

So on I work, in the blazing sun,
To bury what dead we may,
But glad, oh, glad, when the day is done
And the night falls round us grey.
Would those we covered away from sight
Had a rest as sweet as mine!
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!

The Window Overlooking the Harbour

Sad is the Evening: all the level sand
Lies left and lonely, while the restless sea,
Tired of the green caresses of the land,
Withdraws into its own infinity.

But still more sad this white and chilly Dawn
Filling the vacant spaces of the sky,
While little winds blow here and there forlorn
And all the stars, weary of shining, die.

And more than desolate, to wake, to rise,
Leaving the couch, where softly sleeping still,
What through the past night made my heaven, lies;
And looking out across the window sill

See, from the upper window's vantage ground,
Mankind slip into harness once again,
And wearily resume his daily round
Of love and labour, toil and strife and pain.

How the sad thoughts slip back across the night:
The whole thing seems so aimless and so vain.
What use the raptures, passion and delight,
Burnt out; as though they could not wake again.

The worn-out nerves and weary brain repeat
The question: Whither all these passions tend;--
This curious thirst, so painful and so sweet,
So fierce, so very short-lived, to what end?

Even, if seeking for ourselves, the Race,
The only immortality we know,--
Even if from the flower of our embrace
Some spark should kindle, or some fruit should grow,

What were the use? the gain, to us or it,
That we should cause another You or Me,--
Another life, from our light passion lit,
To suffer like ourselves awhile and die.

What aim, what end indeed? Our being runs
In a closed circle. All we know or see
Tends to assure us that a thousand Suns,
Teeming perchance with life, have ceased to be.

Ah, the grey Dawn seems more than desolate,
And the past night of passion worse than waste,
Love but a useless flower, that soon or late,
Turns to a fruit with bitter aftertaste.

Youth, even Youth, seems futile and forlorn
While the new day grows slowly white above.
Pale and reproachful comes the chilly Dawn
After the fervour of a night of love.

Back to the Border

The tremulous morning is breaking
Against the white waste of the sky,
And hundreds of birds are awaking
In tamarisk bushes hard by.
I, waiting alone in the station,
Can hear in the distance, grey-blue,
The sound of that iron desolation,
The train that will bear me from you.

'T will carry me under your casement,
You'll feel in your dreams as you lie
The quiver, from gable to basement,
The rush of my train sweeping by.
And I shall look out as I pass it,--
Your dear, unforgettable door,
'T was _ours_ till last night, but alas! it
Will never be mine any more.

Through twilight blue-grey and uncertain,
Where frost leaves the window-pane free,
I'll look at the tinsel-edged curtain
That hid so much pleasure for me.
I go to my long undone duty
Alone in the chill and the gloom,
My eyes are still full of the beauty
I leave in your rose-scented room.

Lie still in your dreams; for your tresses
Are free of my lingering kiss.
I keep you awake with caresses
No longer; be happy in this!
From passion you told me you hated
You're now and for ever set free,
I pass in my train, sorrow-weighted,
Your house that was Heaven to me.

You won't find a trace, when you waken,
Of me or my love of the past,
Rise up and rejoice! I have taken
My longed-for departure at last.
My fervent and useless persistence
You never need suffer again,
Nor even perceive in the distance
The smoke of my vanishing train!

Reverie: Zahir-u-Din

Alone, I wait, till her twilight gate
The Night slips quietly through,
With shadow and gloom, and purple bloom,
Flung over the Zenith blue.

Her stars that tremble, would fain dissemble
Light over lovers thrown,--
Her hush and mystery know no history
Such as day may own.
Day has record of pleasure and pain,
But things that are done by Night remain
For ever and ever unknown.

For a thousand years, 'neath a thousand skies,
Night has brought men love;
Therefore the old, old longings rise
As the light grows dim above.

Therefore, now that the shadows close,
And the mists weird and white,
While Time is scented with musk and rose;
Magic with silver light.

I long for love; will you grant me some?
Day is over at last.
Come! as lovers have always come,
Through the evenings of the Past.
Swiftly, as lovers have always come,
Softly, as lovers have always come
Through the long-forgotten Past.

Sea Song

Against the planks of the cabin side,
(So slight a thing between them and me,)
The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed,
The great green waves of the Indian sea!

Your face was white as the foam is white,
Your hair was curled as the waves are curled,
I would we had steamed and reached that night
The sea's last edge, the end of the world.

The wind blew in through the open port,
So freshly joyous and salt and free,
Your hair it lifted, your lips it sought,
And then swept back to the open sea.

The engines throbbed with their constant beat;
Your heart was nearer, and all I heard;
Your lips were salt, but I found them sweet,
While, acquiescent, you spoke no word.

So straight you lay in your narrow berth,
Rocked by the waves; and you seemed to be
Essence of all that is sweet on earth,
Of all that is sad and strange at sea.

And you were white as the foam is white,
Your hair was curled as the waves are curled.
Ah! had we but sailed and reached that night,
The sea's last edge, the end of the world!

To the Hills!

'T is eight miles out and eight miles in,
Just at the break of morn.
'T is ice without and flame within,
To gain a kiss at dawn!

Far, where the Lilac Hills arise
Soft from the misty plain,
A lone enchanted hollow lies
Where I at last drew rein.

Midwinter grips this lonely land,
This stony, treeless waste,
Where East, due East, across the sand,
We fly in fevered haste.

Pull up! the East will soon be red,
The wild duck westward fly,
And make above my anxious head,
Triangles in the sky.

Like wind we go; we both are still
So young; all thanks to Fate!
(It cuts like knives, this air so chill,)
Dear God! if I am late!

Behind us, wrapped in mist and sleep
The Ruined City lies,
(Although we race, we seem to creep!)
While lighter grow the skies.

Eight miles out only, eight miles in,
Good going all the way;
But more and more the clouds begin
To redden into day.

And every snow-tipped peak grows pink
An iridescent gem!
My heart beats quick, with joy, to think
How I am nearing them!

As mile on mile behind us falls,
Till, Oh, delight! I see
My Heart's Desire, who softly calls
Across the gloom to me.

The utter joy of that First Love
No later love has given,
When, while the skies grew light above,
We entered into Heaven.

Till I Wake

When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,
Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South.
So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening,
Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth.

His Rubies: Told by Valgovind

Along the hot and endless road,
Calm and erect, with haggard eyes,
The prisoner bore his fetters' load
Beneath the scorching, azure skies.

Serene and tall, with brows unbent,
Without a hope, without a friend,
He, under escort, onward went,
With death to meet him at the end.

The Poppy fields were pink and gay
On either side, and in the heat
Their drowsy scent exhaled all day
A dream-like fragrance almost sweet.

And when the cool of evening fell
And tender colours touched the sky,
He still felt youth within him dwell
And half forgot he had to die.

Sometimes at night, the Camp-fires lit
And casting fitful light around,
His guard would, friend-like, let him sit
And talk awhile with them, unbound.

Thus they, the night before the last,
Were resting, when a group of girls
Across the small encampment passed,
With laughing lips and scented curls.

Then in the Prisoner's weary eyes
A sudden light lit up once more,
The women saw him with surprise,
And pity for the chains he bore.

For little women reck of Crime
If young and fair the criminal be
Here in this tropic, amorous clime
Where love is still untamed and free.

And one there was, she walked less fast,
Behind the rest, perhaps beguiled
By his lithe form, who, as she passed,
Waited a little while, and smiled.

The guard, in kindly Eastern fashion,
Smiled to themselves, and let her stay.
So tolerant of human passion,
"To love he has but one more day."

Yet when (the soft and scented gloom
Scarce lighted by the dying fire)
His arms caressed her youth and bloom,
With him it was not all desire.

"For me," he whispered, as he lay,
"But little life remains to live.
One thing I crave to take away:
You have the gift; but will you give?

"If I could know some child of mine
Would live his life, and see the sun
Across these fields of poppies shine,
What should I care that mine is done?

"To die would not be dying quite,
Leaving a little life behind,
You, were you kind to me to-night,
Could grant me this; but--are you kind?

"See, I have something here for you
For you and It, if It there be."
Soft in the gloom her glances grew,
With gentle tears he could not see.

He took the chain from off his neck,
Hid in the silver chain there lay
Three rubies, without flaw or fleck.
She answered softly "I will stay."

He drew her close; the moonless skies
Shed little light; the fire was dead.
Soft pity filled her youthful eyes,
And many tender things she said.

Throughout the hot and silent night
All that he asked of her she gave.
And, left alone ere morning light,
He went serenely to the grave,

Happy; for even when the rope
Confined his neck, his thoughts were free,
And centered round his Secret Hope
The little life that was to be.

When Poppies bloomed again, she bore
His child who gaily laughed and crowed,
While round his tiny neck he wore
The rubies given on the road.

For his small sake she wished to wait,
But vainly to forget she tried,
And grieving for the Prisoner's fate,
She broke her gentle heart and died.

Song of Taj Mahomed

Dear is my inlaid sword; across the Border
It brought me much reward; dear is my Mistress,
The jewelled treasure of an amorous hour.
Dear beyond measure are my dreams and Fancies.

These I adore; for these I live and labour,
Holding them more than sword or jewelled Mistress,
For this indeed may rust, and that prove faithless,
But, till my limbs are dust, I have my Fancies.

The Garden of Kama:

Kama the Indian Eros

The daylight is dying,
The Flying fox flying,
Amber and amethyst burn in the sky.
See, the sun throws a late,
Lingering, roseate
Kiss to the landscape to bid it good-bye.

The time of our Trysting!
Oh, come, unresisting,
Lovely, expectant, on tentative feet.
Shadow shall cover us,
Roses bend over us,
Making a bride chamber, sacred and sweet.

We know not life's reason,
The length of its season,
Know not if they know, the great Ones above.
We none of us sought it,
And few could support it,
Were it not gilt with the glamour of love.

But much is forgiven
To Gods who have given,
If but for an hour, the Rapture of Youth.
You do not yet know it,
But Kama shall show it,
Changing your dreams to his Exquisite Truth.

The Fireflies shall light you,
And naught shall afright you,
Nothing shall trouble the Flight of the Hours.
Come, for I wait for you,
Night is too late for you,
Come, while the twilight is closing the flowers.

Every breeze still is,
And, scented with lilies,
Cooled by the twilight, refreshed by the dew,
The garden lies breathless,
Where Kama, the Deathless,
In the hushed starlight, is waiting for you.

Camp Follower's Song, Gomal River

We have left Gul Kach behind us,
Are marching on Apozai,--
Where pleasure and rest are waiting
To welcome us by and by.

We're falling back from the Gomal,
Across the Gir-dao plain,
The camping ground is deserted,
We'll never come back again.

Along the rocks and the defiles,
The mules and the camels wind.
Good-bye to Rahimut-Ullah,
The man who is left behind.

For some we lost in the skirmish,
And some were killed in the fight,
But he was captured by fever,
In the sentry pit, at night.

A rifle shot had been swifter,
Less trouble a sabre thrust,
But his Fate decided fever,
And each man dies as he must.

Behind us, red in the distance.
The wavering flames rise high,
The flames of our burning grass-huts,
Against the black of the sky.

We hear the sound of the river,
An ever-lessening moan,
The hearts of us all turn backwards
To where he is left alone.

We sing up a little louder,
We know that we feel bereft,
We're leaving the camp together,
And only one of us left.

The only one, out of many,
And each must come to his end,
I wish I could stop this singing,
He happened to be my friend.

We're falling back from the Gomal
We're marching on Apozai,
And pleasure and rest are waiting
To welcome us by and by.

Perhaps the feast will taste bitter,
The lips of the girls less kind,--
Because of Rahimut-Ullah,
The man who is left behind!

Song of the Colours: by Taj Mahomed

_Rose-colour_
Rose Pink am I, the colour gleams and glows
In many a flower; her lips, those tender doors
By which, in time of love, love's essence flows
From him to her, are dyed in delicate Rose.
Mine is the earliest Ruby light that pours
Out of the East, when day's white gates unclose.

On downy peach, and maiden's downier cheek
I, in a flush of radiant bloom, alight,
Clinging, at sunset, to the shimmering peak
I veil its snow in floods of Roseate light.

_Azure_
Mine is the heavenly hue of Azure skies,
Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings,
Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes,
Whose lovely looks light only on lovely things.

Mine the Blue Distance, delicate and clear,
Mine the Blue Glory of the morning sea,
All that the soul so longs for, finds not here,
Fond eyes deceive themselves, and find in me.

_Scarlet_
Hail! to the Royal Red of living Blood,
Let loose by steel in spirit-freeing flood,
Forced from faint forms, by toil or torture torn
Staining the patient gates of life new born.

Colour of War and Rage, of Pomp and Show,
Banners that flash, red flags that flaunt and glow,
Colour of Carnage, Glory, also Shame,
Raiment of women women may not name.

I hide in mines, where unborn Rubies dwell,
Flicker and flare in fitful fire in Hell,
The outpressed life-blood of the grape is mine,
Hail! to the Royal Purple Red of Wine.

Strong am I, over strong, to eyes that tire,
In the hot hue of Rapine, Riot, Flame.
Death and Despair are black, War and Desire,
The two red cards in Life's unequal game.

_Green_
I am the Life of Forests, and Wandering Streams,
Green as the feathery reeds the Florican love,
Young as a maiden, who of her marriage dreams,
Still sweetly inexperienced in ways of Love.

Colour of Youth and Hope, some waves are mine,
Some emerald reaches of the evening sky.
See, in the Spring, my sweet green Promise shine,
Never to be fulfilled, of by and by.

Never to be fulfilled; leaves bud, and ever
Something is wanting, something falls behind;
The flowered Solstice comes indeed, but never
That light and lovely summer men divined.

_Violet_
I were the colour of Things, (if hue they had)
That are hard to name.
Of curious, twisted thoughts that men call "mad"
Or oftener "shame."
Of that delicate vice, that is hardly vice,
So reticent, rare,
Ethereal, as the scent of buds and spice,
In this Eastern air.

On palm-fringed shores I colour the Cowrie shell,
With its edges curled;
And, deep in Datura poison buds, I dwell
In a perfumed world.
My lilac tinges the edge of the evening sky
Where the sunset clings.
My purple lends an Imperial Majesty
To the robes of kings.

_Yellow_
Gold am I, and for me, ever men curse and pray,
Selling their souls and each other, by night and day.
A sordid colour, and yet, I make some things fair,
Dying sunsets, fields of corn, and a maiden's hair.

Thus they discoursed in the daytime,--Violet, Yellow, and Blue,
Emerald, Scarlet, and Rose-colour, the pink and perfect hue.
Thus they spoke in the sunshine, when their beauty was manifest,
Till the Night came, and the Silence, and gave them an equal rest.

Lalila, to the Ferengi Lover

Why above others was I so blessed
And honoured? to be chosen one
To hold you, sleeping, against my breast,
As now I may hold your only son.

Twelve months ago; that wonderful night!
You gave your life to me in a kiss;
Have I done well, for that past delight,
In return, to have given you this?

Look down at his face, your face, beloved,
His eyes are azure as yours are blue.
In every line of his form is proved
How well I loved you, and only you.