ja(87f 
 
 A^ 
 
 en 
 
 m 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ., JD 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 ^^ CD 
 
 3 m 
 
 
 7 = 
 
 
 4 ^ 
 
 • 30 
 
 m 
 
 
 9 ^ 
 
 
 8 m 
 
 — 1 
 
 ^s 
 
 
 ^ 1
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 FROM AN INDIAN 
 COLLEGE
 
 FROM AN INDIAN 
 COLLEGE 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES GEORGE JENNINGS 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. L" 
 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
 1898
 
 The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, HANSON &■ Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 
 TO 
 
 MR. BERNARD Q^UARITCH 
 
 A SMALL SIGN 
 
 OF 
 
 A DEEP GRATITUDE 
 
 Allahabad, ^'cnevtber 1897 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FITTING SPEECH 
 HEART'S DESIRE— 
 
 I. HEAVEN IS TOO FAR . 
 II. THE CALL OF LABOURERS . 
 
 III. IN UNATTAINABLE AIR 
 
 IV. THE HANDS ARE STAINED . 
 V. OUT OF HER HEART OF HOPE 
 
 VI. THEY, SORROWING, GATHERED WISDOM 
 VII. CLOUDS ON A WINDY DAY . 
 VIII. SO THAT HE ERRED NOT OF DESIGN , 
 IX. FRUITLESS IN THE PLOUGH-WAY 
 X. THE SUN, DREAMING OF OTHER THINGS 
 XI. THROUGH LISTENING HEAVENS . 
 
 lOPAS 
 
 SONG . . . 
 
 AFTER SADI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ix 
 
 II 
 19 
 
 25 
 31 
 39 
 47 
 55 
 63 
 73 
 79 
 91 
 
 99 
 105 
 109
 
 FITTING SPEECH 
 
 Harmony of blending thought and word — 
 Fairest gift to man, and oh how rare ! 
 
 Potvcr to tell the things the soul has heard 
 In her journeyings, and her hope to share ! 
 
 Prophet-like are they whose thoughts compel 
 As a rushing wave the fitting speech 
 
 Onward with the wide resistless swell 
 Of the sea — and they alone may teach.
 
 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Unto few 'tis given even to know 
 What the soul is telling in the ear, 
 
 For Iter words unspoke like breezes flow, 
 Full of music that but few can hear. 
 
 Rarer still the heaven-born minstrelsy 
 
 That can trap sonic chance aerial strain, 
 
 Deep consoling in its mystery, 
 And can utter it to men again.
 
 *,-"' 
 
 H E ART'S DESIRE 
 HEAVEN IS TOO FAR
 
 HEAVEN IS TOO FAR 
 
 V'ou call her wife— and I — the laughing fiend 
 
 Sent her for sins to blast his bed and mar 
 His board ; she is some life of the beasts ill-screened 
 
 In fairest woman-flesh— such wives there are. 
 The more's the shame, for his necessity 
 
 Is still to love. Block up the fouler old 
 Source that still floods man's nature, yet will he 
 
 Seek love; there's sweeter fount, and stream 
 
 twofold. 
 
 13
 
 14 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Blessed is freedom, but 'tis more than most 
 
 Of us can bear unqualified. The soul 
 That's all unfettered, is, her anchor lost, 
 
 A ship that drifts towards a leaping shoal 
 Where foams despair. When zephyrs tilt the sails 
 
 O'er waters musical, the heaven above 
 Is friend sufficient to our want ; when gales 
 
 Drive us to whitening shores, we need thee, love. 
 
 Heaven is too far, too vast, too oft obscured 
 
 To win aught but a fearsome love from man 
 For long, with most of us — there dwell, immured 
 
 In peace-girt walls or poet-dreams, who can 
 Reduce the deity into a form 
 
 Material, and love him much the same 
 As woman loves her hero. We have known storm, 
 
 Know there is terror in living — and no shame
 
 HEAVEN IS TOO FAR 15 
 
 Is mine, for one, the far heaven seems to me 
 
 All infinite, and that I feel before 
 The changeless distance of its majesty 
 
 The isolation of my soul the more. 
 
 All the innumerable souls on earth 
 
 Are held at distance by that higher power — 
 Distant from heaven — strange from the day of birth 
 
 E'en to the mother, who her love may dower 
 Upon her son, yet never hold again 
 
 His heart in hers. Who yet so close has stood 
 To other's heart, he felt its bodily pain, 
 
 That all its ill were his, its good his good. 
 Its hunger his? None ; it is isolate. 
 
 But true love comes so near her heart to press 
 Unto the grief, her answering throbs abate 
 
 Its keenest pains, though fate be loneliness.
 
 i6 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 We have no common language but for low 
 
 And gross necessities. Our souls must each 
 For needs higher than these still stammer slow 
 
 In the unintelligible accents of a speech 
 Peculiar to herself, and jar and grate 
 
 Her woes on unmoved ears — her best to win 
 But a maimed understanding ; separate 
 
 By a perpetual malady from her kin. 
 
 Each is a traveller in a desert, parched 
 
 With inextinguishable thirst, his eyes 
 Cast up to a red sun burning in the arched 
 
 Heavens of brass, the while he fainting cries 
 " How long ! How long ! " And the beloved is su< 
 
 Another traveller, wailing her thirst 
 In alien accents, crossing paths ; the touch 
 
 Of a like death near to her shoulder ; cursed
 
 HEAVEN IS TOO FAR 17 
 
 In a dry land by the like tortures — dear 
 
 For pity^that she bears a grief the pains 
 Of which are ours, and that she bears them near 
 
 To us in a lone world ; for since her chains 
 To torments are like ours, needs she must know 
 
 That ours are equal powers of suffering — each 
 Dear to the other for the pity, though 
 
 Each tells of sorrow in an alien speech. 
 
 The soul that knows its solitude must pine 
 For swifter end of it — and yet, O fate, 
 
 Grant that love's kindly fingers lie and twine 
 With ours, and we may dare thy end to wait.
 
 THE CALL OF LABOURERS
 
 II 
 
 THE CALL OF LABOURERS 
 
 The surging of unnumbered worlds, and sigh 
 
 Of motion swinging to the outmost verge 
 Of the universe through dim immensity, 
 
 With rhythmical return — by night the surge 
 And sighing of the worlds in motion sound 
 
 Soft in mine ear. Stars with stars intertwine 
 The weaving of their courses, nor confound 
 
 Their golden pattern ; worlds with worlds combine
 
 22 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 In rhythmed movements through suspended skies. 
 
 Come listen to the music of the night ! 
 Here, where the stars o'erhang us, Hst the sighs 
 
 They sigh, that none has read their mystery right. 
 
 Turn o'er the pages of old Time, and view 
 
 In long succession all the linked deeds 
 Of mingling races. On from old to new 
 
 The turning of the leaves — as page succeeds 
 Page after page, the finger turning still — 
 
 Sings to the pensive mind with ordered beat 
 Of days succeeding days, and days to fill 
 
 The measure of a season ; summer's heat 
 Pressing on winter, winter hastening on 
 
 To take the burthen of the growing years 
 At his fixed interval, till they have won 
 
 The goal of timeless time that hourly nears.
 
 THE CALL OF LABOURERS 23 
 
 And as the leaves of Time's old volume fall, 
 
 Picturing dimly all the long-drawn deeds 
 Of man,' they sing of endless birth. The call 
 
 Of labourers to their fellows, as succeeds 
 Stage unto stage of the growing work, and son 
 
 Takes up the labour where the father leaves 
 The labour, his allotted portion done 
 
 — The call of labourer to his fellow heaves, 
 Sighing at intervals above the hymn 
 
 Of Time's old volume singing of the deeds 
 Of man. Born unto labour, from the dim 
 
 Verges of time life after life succeeds. 
 
 Speak to me of the giver of the law 
 
 Binding the worlds in movement, to the surge 
 And sigh of mighty motion, as they draw 
 
 Towards the edge of the universe and urge
 
 24 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Their courses back through the far spaces, thick 
 
 With rolling star-worlds moving orderly 
 In rhythmical return, as soft they pick 
 
 Above our world — below — their way in the sky ; 
 — Binding the wheeling company of the years 
 
 In revolution, winter on summer still 
 Pressing, summer swift away as winter nears ; 
 
 And days succeeding days, and days to fill 
 The burthen of a season ; — speak to me 
 
 Of him that breathed into the dual life 
 Lives other than its own, by mystery 
 
 Of birth ever replenishing our hive 
 Of changing workers. Whose is this silent law 
 
 Binding all things in motion, world, and years, 
 And birth — O thou wiser than I ! thine awe 
 
 Greater than mine, thy fears less than my fears ?
 
 IN UNATTAINABLE AIR
 
 Ill 
 
 IN UNATTAINABLE AIR 
 
 Man is man's enemy, and most in this, 
 That he belittles with unthrifty speech 
 
 All that is worthiest, stringing words amiss 
 
 Upon fair themes that, rightly spoke, might teach 
 
 The spirit to rise above her earthly way, 
 
 Where narrow things and daily dues intrude, 
 
 And mount the skies, and from the height survey 
 
 Heaven, and share the heavenly quietude. 
 
 27
 
 28 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Yet, sighing of the goad of speech inept 
 
 That bids the soul wearily drag the plough 
 Over a barren land, who has not stept 
 
 Forth in his turn, and bid the soul to bow 
 Her galled neck against the bruising yoke 
 
 Of words and words, holding to narrow things 
 And daily dues the spirit that, if she broke 
 
 Our bonds, might view heaven's self from soaring 
 wings ? 
 
 Heaven is nearest in deep solitudes, 
 
 And nearest in the solitudes of the hills. 
 On sun-strewn paths threaded through climbing woods 
 
 We two have stood, and shared the rest that fills 
 The clouds at pause upon their high-held way, 
 
 To seek far lands below the widest bend 
 Of rounded earth, while peace in sunlight lay 
 
 On out-mapped plains, stretching to misty end
 
 IN UNATTAINABLE AIR 29 
 
 At a far distance dim as dreams descried. 
 
 — Floating in circles, whole abysms below 
 Our resting feet, the brown kite held his wide 
 
 Flight of still motions imperceptibly slow ; 
 — And rose afar, in unattainable air, 
 
 The Houses of the Snows, the old-time seat 
 Of the heathen gods of Hind ; and everywhere 
 
 The sound of lesser lives, sole music meet 
 To be accompanist of the breeze's song, 
 
 The while she wafts upon their high - held 
 way 
 To far-sought lands the sunny clouds along, 
 
 O'er wide-spread plains throughout the dreamy 
 day. 
 Heaven is nearest in deep solitude, 
 
 'Mid the eternal hills where silence hes, 
 Nor narrow things nor daily dues intrude. 
 
 Where all is still, and solemn thoughts arise.
 
 30 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Journeying home to our dear land of birth, 
 
 On the down-looking verge of her low hills, 
 Pray that the bosom of our mother earth 
 
 May, as the bosom of a mother stills 
 The sorrows of her children, so soothe ours, 
 
 Her children home returned for a space 
 — A little space of sparsely numbered hours — 
 
 Ah, hide upon the arms the down-pressed face ! 
 
 Heaven dwells on earth within the solitudes 
 
 Of the eternal hills where silence dreams, 
 With chin on hand, the day away, and broods 
 
 From eve till morn in frosty moonlight gleams. 
 Look to the eternal hills where narrow things 
 
 And daily dues are not sole thoughts to rise, 
 Where holy silence to her maker sings ; 
 
 Look to the hills, and heaven shall kiss thine eyes
 
 -«'"' 
 
 THE HANDS ARE STAINED
 
 .^-^ 
 
 IV 
 
 THE HANDS ARE STAINED 
 
 Before the far cloud-gates by which man came 
 
 The way of the world, there crawls a form, his eyes 
 Turned to his long dim journeyings of shame, 
 
 Hitherward from forgotten boundaries, 
 That first he kept ; and as he crawls he smears 
 
 Earth with the daubings of his stained palms. 
 E'en as he moves his guilty course, his ears 
 
 Fill with the cry of carrion for alms 
 
 33 c
 
 34 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Of blood, that glut upon his wasted sin. 
 
 —And if he crawled not, but erect he came 
 Through the far gates of earth, his origin 
 
 Fragrant of heaven — that heaven he lost ; though 
 shame 
 Of a first sin still of his heavenly ways 
 
 Blot not the memory that once he reigned 
 Far otherwhere ; yet as he stands to gaze, 
 
 And sighs o'er that long way — the hands are 
 stained. 
 
 Peace ! Peace was slain ; and there Life spawned 
 her brood, 
 
 Dropping the horrors of her spotty seed 
 In wide pools of her blood — where Murder wooed 
 
 His mate upon a low-lain world — to breed. 
 In stuff congenial, into clammy life. 
 
 Cold to all brighter things, though hot to slay ;
 
 THE HANDS ARE STAINED 35 
 
 And where it germinates, to croak of strife 
 
 That nought but draughts of new-spilled blood 
 may lay. 
 
 There seems no law beneficent, no rule 
 
 To bind men's deeds of wrath with bonds of love ; 
 All the vast universe of life to school 
 
 In learning of a milder will above. — 
 Yet all the stars, and oh ! the silent hills. 
 
 Sing to me songs pitched in a sweeter key 
 Of peace. The music of their praises fills 
 
 My heart, my world, my heaven, with harmony. 
 
 Hush ! who dare call the world a world of ill, 
 Where all but life serenely ordered lies ? 
 
 The sounds of strife our untuned ears may fill, 
 While peace is singing through the farthest skies.
 
 36 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 To us within tlie circle of the strife 
 
 Vision is difficult, but viewed afar, 
 From heaven, how small may seem the realm of 
 Hfe 
 
 That it should vaunt itself a world at war ! 
 
 What was he musing — he, the quiet mind, 
 
 Viewing his toilless handiwork, the birth 
 Of the universe from atoms slow defined, 
 
 That gathered atoms to build the rounded earth 
 Slow born, revolving in its minor place 
 
 Of older heavens ; when all was sentient 
 Of law divine, and all were kin, and space 
 
 Was in the peace of one great government ? 
 What musing o'er the world, when life appeared 
 
 Unto the law of peace less dearly bound, 
 Bearing the treasure of own will — that feared 
 
 Her first untrammelled steps, yet slow has found
 
 THE HANDS ARE STAINED 37 
 
 A rasher confidence and chosen her way 
 
 By dangerous paths ? Say, shall she ever roam ? 
 
 Ah hope, ah hope, not ever shall she stray — 
 All else at peace, but hers to err from home !
 
 OUT OF HER HEART OF HOPE
 
 V 
 
 OUT OF HER HEART OF HOPE 
 
 Who fears his thoughts, that they are over-bold, 
 Shows impious distrust. No thought conceived 
 
 Of love is evil, though the impregnate mould 
 Of strangest learning that e'er man received 
 
 Into his brain gave birth ; or many time 
 Confuted heresy of the past, proclaimed 
 
 By buried ages for a deathly crime — 
 
 And so 'twas reverent it was foully named — 
 
 41
 
 42 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Or doctrine of far lands, to eastward taught, 
 Dull cruel errors of an outstripped age. 
 
 Truth were a measurement of right in thought 
 Too iron for men ; love is the juster gage. 
 
 I will not fear he should contaminate 
 
 A weakly soul— such as from pallid face 
 Thrusts forth ill-humoured spots, and sickness' 
 state 
 
 Puts on, at echo of the hurried pace 
 Of small disease by other doors — who bade 
 
 Me view the world a vast experiment, 
 Thus pictured. In a hand the world new made 
 
 Lay small at rest, and power beneficent 
 With wisdom gazing — less than absolute — 
 
 Viewed atom to atom drawn with delicate 
 Handling ; learned, by earlier tests, in suit 
 
 Of elements, and skilled exact to mate
 
 OUT OF HER HEART OF HOPE 43 
 
 The suns and stars — but novice in life — a last 
 Most tOFtuous experiment — whose end, 
 
 ■ > 
 
 Working in doubt, lies hid till time have passed 
 And torn the filmy veil none else may rend. 
 
 Bid me conceive this vast experiment 
 
 With torture of the writhing world and souls 
 Of men, until the veil of time be rent ; 
 
 I will not hate the hand that close controls 
 My spirit to pain ] the ear that hears my cries, 
 
 And yet relenting will not let me go ; 
 For out of tears shall perfect knowledge rise, 
 
 And of my pain the perfect soul shall grow. 
 
 But bid me not to see in man the child 
 Of nameless sire, that got him on a day 
 
 Of carelessness, and deems that birth defiled 
 Demands a penance that the child must pay.
 
 44 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Tell me no red-shame lore of negligence, 
 Of vice-smeared origin, to vagrant end ; 
 
 Read me no craven rule that may dispense 
 With service that my soul of love would tend. 
 
 Out of her heart of hope spring must have cried 
 
 Unto the garden of the world, awoke 
 On the first dawn with kisses opening wide 
 
 The curtains of its eyes, when morning broke 
 First unto Eden-land. High heart the spring 
 
 Has ever held, and highest when the sun, 
 Returning from his night-long journeying, 
 
 Wherein he slumbering moved, has bright begun 
 His waking course, and calling from the edge 
 
 Of the east, first rouses up the spring's dear 
 love, 
 Our world. Then by her kisses as a pledge 
 
 Of constancy — yet ah ! that she will rove ! —
 
 OUT OF HER HEART OF HOPE 45 
 
 And by her frolic and her wayward moods 
 
 — One smile more glad than grief in all her sighs — 
 
 The world grows young again. Spring cried to the buds 
 And Eden blossomed, when the world oped its eyes. 
 
 Theirs is a duller picture ; wreathing mists 
 
 The pigments, and the frame the outmost verge 
 Of the mind's vision, till the eye desists 
 
 For pain of gazing. Smokes rise, as earth would purge 
 From her hot altars nascent sins of the world ; 
 
 Her vast form stirs, and sighing gapes in the crust. 
 Disclosing fires ; and by her breathing whirled 
 
 High, as some furnace belched, the smokes are 
 thrust 
 A moment from the surface, and reveal 
 
 Low steamy dales where breeds the primal form 
 In tepid vapours ; whose long fingers steal 
 
 Soft round the hills and grip the world in storm.
 
 46 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Sullen in backward places lingering, 
 
 By sloth unto the ancient pathways held, 
 Where yet ignobly it would lie, and cling 
 
 Unto low ways of ease ; and still compelled 
 To grudging steps by the old love of ease 
 
 That pricks it on to some small betterment ; 
 Seeking no loftier gain than quick release 
 
 From little ills ; though down its eyes be bent, 
 Life has a long slow upward journey ta'en. 
 
 Surely the delegate will has of divine 
 Some better part, deep in its nature lain. 
 
 Held of its birth, its tardy steps to incline 
 Upward to heaven. Surely the breath that filled 
 
 From his own life with life the inanimate clay, 
 With touching lips, out of his soul instilled 
 
 Into its will the instinct of the way.
 
 THEY, SORROWING, GATHERED 
 WISDOM
 
 VI 
 
 THEY, SORROWING, GATHERED 
 WISDOM 
 
 They, sorrowing, gathered wisdom of their sins, 
 
 But of the sins that ate their empire died, 
 The iron glory of whose ages dins 
 
 Still in the ear, echoing from tongues that cried 
 Loud of a rule to outlast the fettered world 
 
 Applauding them ; boasting eternal sway ; 
 As fat prosperity his glove had hurled 
 
 In time's bleared eyes and bid his wings to stay. 
 
 49 D
 
 50 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 And thou, brave heart, that bidest in their throne, 
 
 And scan'st the realms of thy imperial sires 
 With stately eyes — shall they that love thee own 
 
 That thou must die, when thy white bosom tires 
 Too greatly of the innumerable woes 
 
 Of thy whole world ? When thy great heart is worn 
 By length of pain to fear of petty blows, 
 
 Shall from thy clutching hands the crown be torn ? 
 
 Chiefly thou bi'd'st in thy dear western isle, 
 
 That long is thine. Ah, surely Heaven condones 
 So dear a fault, that taught her lands to smile. 
 
 Glad of the violence that broke the thrones 
 Of lesser kings in her distracted clime. 
 
 And gave her thee to love ! — for thou wert young. 
 Nor called yet to gravity by time. 
 
 Who since has honoured thee ; and she has clung
 
 THEY GATHERED WISDOM 51 
 
 E'er after to thy stronger sister-hand, 
 
 And kissed the fingers that once did her harm — 
 Chiefly thou bidest in that peaceful land, 
 
 Where the old heathen ocean lays his arm 
 Lovingly round the realm ; yet where the race 
 
 Of thy seafaring sons, that cannot stay 
 The vehemence of their Viking blood to chase 
 
 Fortune abroad over the long sea-way 
 That served their sires and links their souls to home, 
 
 How distant be their journeyings — where'er 
 The daring breed of thy strong sons may roam, 
 
 Thou, loving mother of us all, art there. 
 
 We know the fierce-eyed bearded lineaments, 
 
 The full-voiced laughter, and the deep-toned rage 
 
 When he is angered, that the caverns rents 
 
 Of shore and heavens, nor lives of men assuage ;—
 
 52 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 We know the wind-rough visage of our sire, 
 
 Him whom thou weddedst in thy unsung youth, 
 E'er greatness won whispered thy heart aspire 
 
 To rule the world ; nor fear his form uncouth, 
 That thou lov'st still, spite of his heathen heart 
 
 Thine has outstripped ; and of his hero hand 
 And its hard schooling have we learned a part 
 
 Not all unworthy of our mother-land. 
 
 Yet, oh thou wisest of the imperial race, 
 
 And mother of us all ! could we but view 
 The serene beauty of thy steadfast face. 
 
 From thy calm eyes should we the boon renew 
 Thou gav'st us of thy godlike parentage. 
 
 And learn afresh, with loftier dignity 
 To play our part unto our destined age, 
 
 Than we may learn from the brave heathen sea.
 
 THEY GATHERED WISDOM 53 
 
 Aye and for aye to burn a light that saves, 
 Hold up, nor tire, thy beacon to mankind 
 
 Over the night-ruled gulf of surly waves, 
 That they a haven for their sails may find ! 
 
 Thou hast the privilege of the latest come, 
 
 The large advantage over all thy line 
 Of buried empires, that the garnered sum 
 
 Of all the teachings of their reigns is thine. 
 They, stumbling, gathered wisdom of their sin, 
 
 But by their errors are thy steps more sure ; 
 Death broke their reddened wrists, but thou shalt win 
 
 Time's strong alliance, while thy hands are pure. 
 Hast thou, daughter of fallen empires, learned 
 
 Blameless the wisdom that they erring gained, 
 Aye wear, nor fear, the diadem that turned 
 
 To death upon their brows who wore it stained. —
 
 54 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 O mother of us all, if thou should'st die, 
 Where will thy hero sons, our fathers, rest. 
 
 That strew the quarters of the world, yet lie 
 
 — Death leading childhood back — within thy 
 breast ?
 
 CLOUDS ON A WINDY DAY
 
 VII 
 CLOUDS ON A WINDY DAY 
 
 Clouds on a windy day that drives the wheels 
 
 Of myriad scouring chariots to seem 
 But one, so close their courses, nor reveals 
 
 But faint the distance how his maddened team, 
 The driver, flinging wide and loose the rein. 
 
 Urges to wilder gallop with his cries ; — 
 Clouds on a windy day scour o'er the plain 
 
 Of heaven, and sudden from the van outflies 
 
 57
 
 58 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 A thinner streamer, where the cars are held 
 Less close compact, so headlong is the race ; 
 
 Till other streamer pass it by, compelled 
 To rein its steeds awhile at lesser pace. 
 
 They who among us men a moment lead, 
 
 Stretching our lesser paces to a stride 
 Of fuller life, to match their panting speed. 
 
 Or by the fear to lag behind ; and guide 
 Us on, are clouds upon a windy day, 
 
 Storming from out the foremost company ; 
 Yet swift o'erta'en upon their heady way, 
 
 Uncertain guides ; nor longer in our sky. 
 
 That from the stars some race of men more fair. 
 More late from heaven, who yet our loitering feet 
 
 Of earth outstripped long ages gone ; to bear 
 No more a burthen on our road, nor heat
 
 CLOUDS ON A WINDY DAY 59 
 
 Of lengthening plains ; climbing on easy height 
 
 Nea? the white fabled city of our hopes 
 — In happier dreams— of them some soul, more bright 
 
 Than all for mercy, from those easy slopes 
 Would turn him back again unto the plains 
 
 Where are our labours, our slow steps to lead, 
 By paths he knew ! Ah, could he dare the pains 
 
 Of that dread way again, our steps to heed ? 
 
 Grant him the throne of the earth, and weight his 
 brow 
 
 With heavy diadem of absolute power 
 He had not sought — how gladly would he bow 
 
 To yield its grief, should time's hands sign the hour 
 Of his release and bid man rise to bear 
 
 The weight of his own royalty ! — nor hope 
 For milder sway than kings of earth may dare, 
 
 Nor softer hands to rule. He might not cope
 
 6o FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 With all the foulness of our ways by rule 
 
 Of love alone. His too to wield a scourge, 
 And tame the brute part of our souls and school 
 
 Them to submission. Screams of rage would 
 surge 
 Up to a heaven that gave so harsh a hand 
 
 To drive us on, and we all point to breech 
 In scorn of small legalities that stand 
 
 On ancient precedent ; scream, and beseech 
 Redress from high against a lawless sway 
 
 Would crush us into goodness. So should all 
 In name of right rebel ; and on a day 
 
 Of popular triumph would his empire fall. 
 
 And failing heroes, there is fear of lords 
 Of lesser natures, that should guide amiss. 
 
 Nor all our small intelligence affords 
 Us means indubitably plain 'twixt this
 
 CLOUDS ON A WINDY DAY 6i 
 
 Or the other to distinguish ; lesser man 
 Unsure, or hero heavenly taught to lead ; 
 
 Or king inspired, or him to lead the van 
 
 Of movement down to ruin with headlong speed. 
 
 They who are noble by men's measurement 
 
 Rise from the happier houses that endured 
 Long years of wider labour than have bent 
 
 The necks of other father-lines. So strength 
 Grew fuller in the sons than to the sires ; 
 
 And larger souls to bear the apportioned load. 
 And breathe of hope to other soul that tires, 
 
 Or cavils at the pace, or doubts the road. 
 
 It is but by the wider exercise 
 
 In all her duties that the soul shall large 
 
 To natural spaces all her boundaries. 
 
 Then shall she reign o'er serene lands, and charge
 
 62 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Her higher self take up her liberty ; 
 
 And all her realm — the brute, the ill, expelled— 
 Draw on to heaven. Cramp not her wings, but free 
 
 Her, like the homing bird the hand has held 
 Long in captivity, and then has flung 
 
 At random in the air its path to find ; 
 That has a moment in wide circles hung, 
 
 Then home on glad wings that outvie the wind.
 
 so THAT HE ERRED NOT 
 OF DESIGN
 
 «-"' 
 
 VIII 
 
 so THAT HE ERRED NOT 
 OF DESIGN 
 
 His gain to stir the deprecating hands 
 
 And wagging of the monitory beard ; 
 So that he erred not of design, nor stands 
 
 On dangerous ground to do what others feared, 
 To gain the eminence of a httle wrong — 
 
 When nerveless hands are raised to deprecate 
 So strange a daring as will quit the throng 
 
 And tread a separate way ; when, animate 
 
 65 E
 
 66 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 With need to prophesy, a palsied head 
 
 Weak-jointed with its trunk convulsive shakes 
 Out memory's jumbled store of fables, led 
 
 Up to the moral of the doom that takes 
 A fainter breath away — tales long delayed 
 
 With tremulous tedium of age, intent 
 To warm its blood with all the comfort rayed 
 
 From warned daring close on punishment — 
 So that he erred not of design ; but pressed 
 
 Into the lonely places of the soul 
 Upon the footsteps that seemed truth's, to rest 
 
 On firmest ground, beckoning to long-sought 
 goal; 
 He that has journeyed in that lonely land 
 
 Where the far sun-smit curve of the world 
 reveals 
 No kin of man, and the hot wind-stirred sand 
 
 Retains no mark of human feet, and steals
 
 so THAT HE ERRED NOT 67 
 
 All guidance from the tracks that led his way — 
 
 He that erroneous tenets so has held, 
 And stood alone a space ; and on a day 
 
 Has turned him home again, where truth has 
 dwelled, 
 While he has strayed, holds of his wanderings 
 
 A fuller wisdom than his soul in ease 
 Had learned of truth alone, and docile brings 
 
 A larger spirit to his teacher's knees. 
 
 Claim for a right in birth — nor stay to ask 
 
 Whence cometh right — a law benign, and writ 
 In little syllables, that so the task 
 
 To stutter of its wishing-well should sit 
 Not heavily on a raw intelligence. 
 
 Disclaim the low soiled lids that veil our eyes 
 And blear the glances they would hide, for sense 
 
 Of much misdone— that, secret, still must rise
 
 68 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Into their backward mirrors — for a spite 
 
 Cruelly done unto a thing disgraced 
 When seen ill-made, yet born possessed of right 
 
 That was not cancelled by a maker's haste. 
 And serene were the eyes of race begot 
 
 With growthless wisdom, largest at the birth ; 
 And broad and gravely browed the race — but not 
 
 The race of men, nor were their home our 
 earth. 
 
 I preach no leering slander of the street 
 
 That all are equally fouled, and shame avowed 
 And singing naked where her fellows meet 
 
 To make a market, and the head is bowed 
 But as convention for a lure as stale 
 
 As are her senses, not so blotched a skin 
 Shows openly as hidden sham.e would veil 
 
 With decent cloaks to wrap its rawness in.
 
 so THAT HE ERRED NOT 69 
 
 I do not preach, since all are vile, go call 
 More Tices to thee in the streets of shame. 
 
 We do but walk by falling, but who fall, 
 
 When they may stand, lie beastward, whence they 
 came. 
 
 — Wet in the moulding, from the humming wheel 
 
 Now whirling, whirling with a speed that stands 
 Still to the eye, till motion fail and reel, 
 
 Curling the edge of the disc, the potter's hands 
 Pluck deftly off the new-turned shape, and lay 
 
 It down with skill that knows and wards each risk 
 Of breakage or ill form, then swiftly weigh 
 
 Downward the nearer rim of the slowing disc. 
 And whirl it round until it sleeping stands 
 
 Still to the eye again — so moulds he through 
 His day. All things but life lie where the hands 
 
 Of heaven, wet in the moulding, laid them new.
 
 70 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Nor ever breakage nor ill form is there, 
 
 Nor bungling hand to pluck them from the wheel. 
 Life moulds herself, and crook'd and cracked must 
 bear — 
 
 She judges well — the weight of fortune's heel. 
 
 Who gave us will gave us the power to err ; 
 
 And though we curse the gift for gift unasked, 
 And, crying for lower ease, though we demur 
 
 To hold a boon that is but labour masked ; 
 Driving our feet where they but crave to rest. 
 
 Binding our limbs with bonds of liberty. 
 Cursing us only where all else is blessed — 
 
 The gift is given, nor can we lay it by. 
 
 The double duty of a noble creed 
 
 To God and other still a third involves, 
 
 Lesser — to self. And this our circle of need. 
 Ringing our world, around one task revolves.
 
 so THAT HE ERRED NOT 71 
 
 Each thought is flame ; then lift it high to guide — 
 
 So far as guidance lies in vision obscure 
 Of man as leader, bear we all lamps, and wide 
 
 The low warm circle, though each flame unsure — 
 The delegate will back to the will that gave 
 
 Its feet to journeying — nor all alone — 
 Hope sways her brighter lamp ahead to save 
 
 And lead us wiser back, our will his own.
 
 FRUITLESS IN THE PLOUGH-WAY
 
 .*«-*^ 
 
 IX 
 
 FRUITLESS IN THE PLOUGH-WAY 
 
 Ye great ones given to know the bird-sweet tongue, 
 
 That trill, ye know not why, in fountain-notes 
 Sweet welling, bubbling, gurgling, rippling flung 
 
 Free of the song-stocked columns of your throats ; 
 For joy, for sorrow, for life, for love new won. 
 
 For each emotion, single, mingled all ; 
 For that your souls are musical alone, 
 
 And being act, acting are musical — 
 
 75
 
 76 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Have ye no honoured place within my scheme, 
 Ye that, if ye were gone, the sun his rays 
 
 Would darken for grief of you, and clouds would 
 stream 
 For you and loss of sunshine song-lit days ? 
 
 Ay, truly have ye. We too know not why, 
 
 And yet ye move our lesser hearts and thrill 
 And set a-ringing in fair harmony 
 
 The little strings, vibrating that were still ; 
 Nor e'er had known how songs lay silent there, 
 
 As music in a new unfingered lute. 
 Had ye not sung unto the trembling air, 
 
 That smote the little strings, crying " Be not 
 mute ! " 
 
 And so ye exercise our idling hearts ; 
 
 And, though ye wot not, each emotion turns
 
 FRUITLESS IN THE PLOUGH-WAY 77 
 
 — So by the power that your sweet song imparts — 
 Opening with flowers at morn, to the sun that 
 burns 
 
 Bright in the heaven, as it goes daily round, 
 In all the beauty stuffed within the seed ; 
 
 That, had your sun not shone, the barren ground 
 Would hold in husks, their beauty never freed. 
 
 Yet see ye give no notes to baser airs — 
 
 They are no syllables of the bird-sweet tongue 
 That, flinging up her song, her melody shares 
 
 With echoes soft of strings less sweetly strung ; 
 They are no fire that heaven's good traveller 
 brings 
 
 To draw the harvest from the husky grain — 
 That else who sows, to furrow vainly flings, 
 
 And else had fruitless in the plough-way lain ;
 
 78 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 But heat to burst the shells of poisonous seeds 
 — Our souls the land, the sowers good and ill — 
 
 So all the field be marred with blowing weeds 
 That every breeze with floating harm shall fill. 
 
 Ye serve us if ye raise our eyes, to view 
 
 Things fairer than the things that bind our feet. 
 And bid us of the high sun heart renew, 
 
 Dull daily need, and narrow dues to meet. 
 Ye serve him if ye praise him, though ye praise 
 
 Of love that reasons not, but, seeing, sings 
 The loveliness that circles all our ways, 
 
 When duller eyes see but the uglier things.
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING OP^ 
 OTHER THINGS
 
 X 
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING OF 
 OTHER THINGS 
 
 The sun, dreaming of other things, has hung 
 
 Seeds on the branches twisted by the wind ; 
 The wind, dreaming of other things, has flung 
 
 The seed abroad that, in its sun-ripe rind. 
 Holds all in small the forms and hues of bloom. 
 
 And branch, foredrawn in changing tracery ; 
 And what it holds within its narrow room 
 
 Is law to what or branch or bloom shall be.
 
 82 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Warping the measure of the tender stem, 
 
 Dyeing the blossomed branch, the wind and sky 
 Turn into forms and colours strange to them 
 
 The branch and bloom, by rules of fantasy. 
 Toy of the wind and sky, sun-ripened, hung 
 
 On swaying branches twisted by the wind. 
 The seed abroad by idle airs is flung. 
 
 And, if it may, a happy soil shall find. 
 
 Who that has viewed his worse or better deeds 
 
 But sees them rooted in a soil of lives 
 That were not his to order ; sprung of seeds 
 
 The wind, not he, laid where the sun contrives, 
 Not he, the breaking of the ripened shell. 
 
 And airward draws the tender life the wind. 
 Not he, bends to its blowing ill or well — 
 
 And deeper law, by him nor them designed ?
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING 83 
 
 And has he powers ? What powers but long derived 
 
 Through other hves that nature drained for him ? 
 Or wisdom, but kind circumstance contrived 
 
 A school for learning, and gave him lamp to 
 trim 
 By night, and leisure days ? Or vantage gained, 
 
 But others gave the means, impelled to gifts 
 By kindly nature, that has ever reigned 
 
 A sweet-faced queen in all their line, and lifts 
 The latest scion to her throne to kiss 
 
 Her tender majesty into his face, 
 That is a generous friend. Or lacks he this. 
 
 Then other vantage, held by no dear grace 
 Of friendship crowned with smiles; but grim, and 
 wrenched 
 
 From weaker hands, that feebler lines upraise. 
 Who ever in the struggling ages blenched 
 
 Before a fiercer eye and violent ways ?
 
 84 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 What part of heaven shines in his thoughtful eyes 
 But shone before in older eyes than his, 
 
 Drawing their beauty out of happy skies 
 
 He did not choose, though in his soul their 
 bliss ? 
 
 What gloom of hell lies in his face defiled. 
 
 His warped soul, and all-disordered mind, 
 But comes of woes some earlier wretch reviled. 
 
 And earlier still, and him to vileness bind ? 
 What nature has he is his own, not strained 
 
 Through lives innumerable, the residue 
 Or clean or filthy his, as heaven has deigned, 
 
 But foul or fair, all old — no drop is new. 
 What power is his to find the better way. 
 
 Or lead his fellows to a happier seat ? 
 Or if he find the path or if he stray. 
 
 He still but treads the steps of older feet.
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING 85 
 
 Were time all present, 'twere conceivably free. 
 
 So should each moment rise new worlds, to fade 
 Out of all being as they 'gan to be, 
 
 Their being no longer than a flash displayed 
 A moment in an over-summered sky ; 
 
 So should their time be bonded with no past, 
 Their creatures bonded to no ancestry ; 
 
 And they were free, while that their world should 
 last. 
 
 Forbid that we be over-logical 
 
 To draw by reason to a desperate end ; 
 And for that it be reason, and that all 
 
 The premises right, nor even wish to amend 
 The drawing from them, to a consequence 
 
 More blessed or happy, can detect a flaw. 
 We bow to reason, though a subtler sense 
 
 Cry, "Not man's logic, but man's good be law."
 
 86 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Should soul of man, contained, grow to contain 
 The world containing it, the soul might view 
 
 New premises for her reasoning, and attain 
 By added premises conclusions new. 
 
 If none be free, the coward straitly bound 
 
 Unto his visionary villain fears. 
 His puddle blood the oozing of a ground 
 
 Others defiled, his ever-ready tears 
 Fed by long muddy conduits from the hearts 
 
 Of beaten ancestors — the liar, cheat, 
 The lurking thief, and them that tread the marts 
 
 Of England's thoroughfares by night with feet 
 Fouler than fallen filth they beat on, vile 
 
 Debauchers and debauched, that sap the life 
 And virtue of the state, and law the while 
 
 Stands fat and belted by ; them of the knife
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING 87 
 
 That murder for small change, or hate, or lust, 
 
 And wipe the blade upon a sleeping hand 
 To mock the bleared eyes of the courts, and 
 trust 
 
 To sin unseen ; knaves to betray the land 
 Dear of all lands, the womb that bare, the breast 
 
 That suckled them, the mother-lips that won 
 Smiles from their tears, for moneyed ease to rest 
 
 After the labours of the villainy done. 
 Were liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, all 
 
 Bound strictly each to his own villainy. 
 There were but brute in the deep tones that call 
 
 For justice to the wronged. Guilt ! All were 
 free 
 To wreck the world, and smirk for answer that 
 
 They had no will to do it. Duty, crime 
 Were silly words we long have babbled, pat 
 
 Like parrots, learning for a little time
 
 88 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 After a silly month, with naught to do 
 
 But cram a brainless head with empty sound. 
 
 And sin were naught, and ill were naught to rue, 
 And effort were to till a barren ground. 
 
 If none be free, then true intelligence 
 
 AVill pay no love to those large souls who set 
 Fair patterns to our eyes, and reverence 
 
 Become an ancient thing a man has met 
 Once by strange accident in backward mind 
 
 Hidden in a gaping village, like a phrase 
 Of perished tongue that peeping scholars find 
 
 With strange survivals of long-buried ways. 
 If none be free, then lies that inner voice — 
 
 Ah, she salutes evil and good by names 
 Differing in different creeds — yet ever choice 
 
 Betwixt them offers — lying then, she shames
 
 THE SUN, DREAMING 89 
 
 Her priestess ofifice when she bids us choose 
 
 Who have no choosing. Ofifice none is hers, 
 Nor priestess she, but some odd tongue that loose 
 
 Hangs on a wire the passing breeze but stirs. 
 Are there two lords, and sentient life's a lord 
 
 So natured that he bound his slave in chains, 
 And drags him on through evil ways toward 
 
 No goal, no nearer — for the bond sustains 
 Him still — to love than at the starting-place ? 
 
 Are there two lords, the lord of that is bound 
 In nature's happy bonds, to law, to peace, 
 
 A tenderer ruler than we men have found ? 
 — If none be free, not one, never to choose. 
 
 To wrench from inner wrong the victory ; 
 Brave heart, be thou still strong, nor still refuse 
 
 To strive, for love of higher than may be !
 
 THROUGH LISTENING HEAVENS
 
 To 
 
 Sweet eyes that shall not see, and sweet ears that shall 
 not hear ; to little lives ended, suice my 
 verses were written, in play- 
 days, and yet a service.
 
 ^'" 
 
 XI 
 THROUGH LISTENING HEAVENS 
 
 Night and sweet peace are here, most welcome peace 
 
 To the ear, the outpost of the camped soul 
 Sojourning in hostile land. The moon her less 
 
 But fairer radiance — that they say she stole, 
 Though if she robbed the sun, her own deft skill 
 
 Made fairer what she stole — views in the night, 
 Her mirror, that she kisses for the part 
 
 It shows her of her loveliness and light. 
 
 93
 
 94 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 The mother crooning rocks her child to rest ; 
 
 — Oh sleep, my child ! the moon shines in the 
 heaven ; 
 Low are her notes, and soft her mother-breast ; 
 
 — Oh sleep, my child ! for rest the night is given. 
 
 The dawn and joy are come, with promises 
 
 Of fairer beauty than our mortal day 
 Can bring. Fresh while the white-strewn dew yet lies 
 
 Come to the meadows, for it will not stay. 
 The mother smiling greets the baby cheeks ; 
 
 — Oh wake to laughter, wake ! high rides the sun ; 
 Soft are the arms her laughing baby seeks ; 
 
 — Oh wake to laughter, wake ! the day's begun. 
 
 Ah thou, death, thou they draw with hollow eyes, 
 Yet haply hast thou smiling mother-brows ; 
 
 And haply are thy words sweet lullabies, 
 Or daybreak kisses that from sleep arouse.
 
 THROUGH LISTENING HEAVENS 95 
 
 Or fair or foul, oh stand not thou beside 
 
 My bed to say, " Thy sands of Hfe are run ; " 
 
 Oh come not thou, or fair or cavern-eyed, 
 Oh come not thou, ere sense of labour done. 
 
 I shall not know thee for a mother dear 
 
 If else thou come, my task nor done nor learned ; 
 I still thy chilly hand of bones must fear 
 
 If else thou come, my meed of rest unearned. 
 It ne'er were earned, nor e'er work well achieved, 
 
 Should'st thou delay for me the centuries ; 
 Yet work attempted that were well conceived 
 
 Were thing held sure where else all dubious 
 flees. 
 Or fair or foul, oh stand not thou beside 
 
 My bed to say, " Thy web of life is spun ; " 
 Oh come not thou, or fair or hollow-eyed. 
 
 Oh come not thou, ere sense of service done.
 
 96 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 The rainbow hangs upon the clearing sky, 
 
 A curved ribbon on a sobbing breast, 
 When tears are passing o'er, and smiles are nigh, 
 
 That you so treated her, and have confessed 
 That you so treated her most ill. And where, 
 
 Where vanishing are tears, and sighs, and bow ? 
 Tears, sighs, and bow have faded from the air ; 
 
 Yet, have they come, they cannot wholly go. 
 
 Who cried, "The soul is but a harmony; 
 
 No longer may it sing than lives the lute ; 
 The lute is cracked, and laid neglected by, 
 
 And all its music is for ever mute " ? 
 Though webs will cover it, though worms may eat 
 
 The sounding-board and all the eloquent strings, 
 The lute but changes form ; the music sweet 
 
 Through countless listening heavens wends and 
 sings.
 
 p 
 
 THROUGH LISTENING HEAVENS 97 
 
 Sings, sings the music while the fingers strike 
 The golden fetters from her dancing feet ; 
 
 Rings, rings her step on airy pavements, like 
 A maid's the love she kissed but once to meet. 
 
 If truth be old, if none of truth be new. 
 
 For them that look into new things waits pain. 
 Death bringeth doubts, and doubts a lore may rue 
 
 That taught them wrong, and still may leave its 
 stain. 
 Thou hooded guide, who dares to take thy hand 
 
 And trust thy steps towards the parting veil, 
 Where — blind the stride — may lie or gulf or land. 
 
 Wrath, just as smiles, our advent there to hail ? 
 Thick, thick the breath, and blind the straining eyes, 
 
 And dumb the porter that the curtain holds. 
 Ah, who may calmly step to fate that lies 
 
 Behind the thickness of the parting folds ?
 
 98 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Ah thou, death, thou they draw with hollow eyes, 
 
 Yet haply hast thou smiling mother-brows. 
 Ah, haply are thy words sweet lullabies, 
 
 Or daybreak kisses that from sleep arouse. 
 Or fair or foul, oh stand not thou beside 
 
 My bed to say, " Thy web of life is spun ; " 
 Oh come not thou, or fair or cavern-eyed, 
 
 Oh come not thou, ere sense of labour done.
 
 lOPAS
 
 ^-' 
 
 lOPAS 
 
 (^NEID, I. 740) 
 
 New moon, full moon, waxing and waning ! 
 
 High thy lamp, the way by night showing. 
 Day's light, sun bright ! Man ever straining 
 
 O'er his work, looks up for thy going. 
 
 List his luting 
 
 — Gold his lyre — 
 
 Old Tyre's minstrel lopas is hymning,
 
 I02 
 
 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 High saluting 
 Each bright fire ; 
 
 Bright the sun, but the moon's lamp e'er 
 dimming. 
 
 High his singing 
 
 — Sweet the air — 
 
 Dido's bard at new Carthage is hymning, 
 
 Backward flinging 
 
 His long hair. 
 
 Dido, Dido, thy fate beware ! 
 
 Sings he now the rising of man 
 
 — Round man's homestead herds ever lowing — 
 How the race of mortals began, 
 
 Gods on them earth's lordship bestowing :
 
 lOPAS 103 
 
 Whence heaven's waters, 
 
 Whence heaven's fire, 
 
 Both the Bears, and each bright constellation; 
 
 Atlas' daughters — 
 
 Tempests dire 
 
 Flow the tears of their long lamentation ; 
 
 Why so speeding 
 
 Winter's sun 
 
 Hastes to quit his heavenly station, 
 
 Never heeding 
 
 But to run 
 
 Back to Ocean, his course half done : 
 
 What delays make long the night 
 
 — Sing, lopas, Atlas' teaching 
 Why the dark steals from the light, 
 
 Shadowy hand through winter outreaching.
 
 104 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 List his luting 
 
 — Troy's the gain ; 
 
 Dido's doom is to love unavailing — 
 
 Each note suiting 
 
 Strain to strain, 
 
 While the stars in the dawnlight are paling. 
 
 Long the praise 
 
 The music o'er ; 
 
 Tyrians, Trojans, him high poet hailing. 
 
 — To our days 
 
 Comes no such lore ; 
 
 Virgil, Virgil, oh tell us more.
 
 SONG
 
 SONG 
 
 Easily down the flowing stream 
 I paddle, I paddle my light canoe ; 
 
 Down where the ripples idly gleam 
 In the reach we knew 
 When I rowed with you. 
 
 Summer has gone and summer come, 
 
 But you, love, but you, love, are far away ; 
 
 Lonely I list the ripples' hum 
 
 'Neath the purple ray 
 
 Of the dying day. 
 107
 
 io8 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Changed is the burden of the strain, 
 It murmurs, it murmurs to me alone. 
 
 Telling of absence and of pain, 
 In a sighing tone, 
 As I pass alone. 
 
 Slowly adown the heavy stream 
 I paddle, I paddle my lone canoe, 
 
 Down where the waves no longer gleam 
 In the reach we knew 
 When I rowed with you.
 
 AFTER SADI
 
 AFTER SADI 
 I 
 
 Know you the East — its spreading dome of blue 
 
 Roofing the level earth to render it 
 One temple wide and radiant, with the due 
 
 Of day-long prayer more plainly urgent writ 
 Than on our narrower skies ? Know you the hour 
 
 Of rest in Eastern day, when silence signs, 
 Bending her solemn brows, to kneel to power 
 
 Ordering the wandering earth in her confines ?
 
 112 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 — Within a garden stood a tomb endonied, 
 With rounded roof to match the domed sky 
 
 Of the East. Here Sadi Sahib musing roamed, 
 And to the shrine in deeper thought drew nigh. 
 
 " Handfuls of roses freshly plucked, and bound 
 
 With grasses from its neighbouring garden brought, 
 Sweet offering of reverence, I found 
 
 Upon a cupola. So fragrance-fraught 
 The roses bound with grass, rashly I cried, 
 ' Here's common grass with fairest roses tied. 
 
 How comes poor grass in noble company ? ' 
 
 " The grasses heard, and smiled to hear the scorn, 
 And whispered, ' Sadi ! their nobility 
 
 Spurns not old friends. Us beauties none adorn. 
 Nor scent nor radiance the soul to fill. 
 Yet are we from the roses' garden still.'" 
 
 And Sadi, pondering the meek reply, 
 
 Murmured, " Though graceless, from His garden L"
 
 AFTER SADI 113 
 
 II 
 
 A king of Araby in bygone days 
 
 Lay on a bed of pain ; for age had gripped 
 Him fast, nor hope remained that suave delays, 
 
 Time-honoured expedient, might be shpped 
 Into a form of parley, with a foe 
 
 So old in war and policy. The king 
 Of Araby resigned waited the slow 
 
 And heavy advent of the gruesome thing 
 More terrible than pain, to ope the door 
 
 Of that still chamber where he lay. And while 
 He lay awaiting silently, once more 
 
 The throng of life intruded, with its smile 
 Fresh of the outer air. They ushered in 
 
 A horseman that had rode a sunny day, 
 
 H
 
 114 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Mile after sunny mile, to bring the din 
 Of victory to his ears and speed his way 
 
 To other realms with fit accompaniment. 
 
 The messenger to catch his answer bent : 
 "Take thou thy good news to mine enemy, 
 
 Mine heir. F"or me no news : time ne'er has 
 turned 
 To give again our frail humanity 
 
 The moments he has offered and we spurned."
 
 AFTER SADI 115 
 
 III 
 
 " In far Bagdad " — I do our Sadi wrong 
 
 To turn the verse that renders all he wills, 
 How simple be the theme, worthy of song — 
 
 To lowliest matters lending charm, as trills 
 Through level meads a singing rivulet — 
 
 " A pennon and a curtain meeting spoke. 
 The pennon, weary of the road and fret 
 
 And dust of ridden way with soldier-folk, 
 Complained : ' Though thou and I, of one degree, 
 
 Are servants of the king, what other days 
 Are thine and mine ! From service never free. 
 
 In season, ay and out, on foreign ways
 
 ii6 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 Or home, I'm on the tramp of constant war, 
 
 'Mid hardships thou not dream'st, siege, road and 
 dust! 
 In siege, on dusty road, I'm to the fore ; 
 
 Yet here forsooth to thee precedence must 
 By me be given. Thou'rt, lordUng, palace-free, 
 
 And I, rude fellow, stay without. Thou keep'st 
 With ladies starry-eyed thy company ; 
 
 'Midst jasmine-scented maids thy senses steep'st. 
 In rough men's grip, in lands by war made bare. 
 With fettered foot and turning brain I fare.' 
 
 "The curtain answered — 'But I lowly bow 
 Unto the threshold of my King, and thou ! 
 Thou lift'st thy head above the heads of all. 
 It is but pride necessitates a fall.' 
 Sadi is meek, and, meek, from care is free, 
 For none 'gainst lowliness does enmity."
 
 AFTER SADI 117 
 
 IV 
 
 Should wrong of enemy, should wrong of friend, 
 
 Work in thee grief, let grief in bitterness 
 Not rail against mankind. But this shall end 
 
 Thy soul's complaint : all griefs, all joys, that press 
 Into the mingled day of Hfe arise 
 
 Not from our fellows, from an origin 
 Beyond the narrow range of mortal eyes, 
 
 Moulding our fated days ere they begin. 
 
 Although the arrow from the bow has ta'en 
 Its flight self-poised, and on a mounting wing 
 
 Outflies the quarry — not the shaft has slain 
 
 But hewhose hand has strainedand loosed the string.
 
 ii8 FROM AN INDIAN COLLEGE 
 
 V 
 
 Who has a bitter mind and cannot taste 
 What good is his, for thought of greater ill, 
 
 Or greater good of other, fortune-graced — 
 With sweeter food Sadi his soul shall fill. 
 
 Shall ye see one who schemes and scheming draws 
 
 All his desires into a crowded hand. 
 While fails his starveling neighbour — little flaws 
 
 Creep strangely in to spoil whate'er he's planned. 
 
 Let be ! How few the days to pass ere dust 
 Shall nibble at the ever-scheming brain ! 
 
 What difference in king or beggar thrust 
 Each in the earth, earth to become again ?
 
 AFTER SADI 119 
 
 The rifts 'twixt lordship and small service close 
 
 When fate that's writ takes back the rags and 
 sword. 
 
 Dig in their crumbled dust— who of ye knows 
 Which is the dust of mendicant or lord ? 
 
 Printed liy liALLANTYNE, IIANSON 6^ Co. 
 Edinburgli &= London
 
 This book is L ^ 
 
 date stamped below 
 
 JWi-DLLB-uigfj 
 JUL13198J 
 
 2»n-6,'52(A1855)470
 
 AA 000 374 098 2 
 
 PR 
 
 4825 
 
 J2187f