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 L\ u h i? * c £ ri o p e
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 / 
 
 •> V 
 
 India's Love Lyrics
 
 INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS 
 
 Including The Garden of Kama 
 
 Collected and arranged in verse by 
 Laurence Hope 
 
 STARS OF THE DESERT 
 
 By Laurence Hope. 
 
 LAST POEMS 
 
 By Laurence Hope
 
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 By 
 
 LAURENCE HOPE 
 
 New York 
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 COPYRIGHT, 1902, 
 
 By dodd, mead and company 
 
 Copyright, 1906, 
 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN TJ. S. A.
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "Less than the Dust" i 
 
 "To the Unattainable" 2 
 
 "In the Early, Pearly Morning": Song by Valgo- 
 
 vind 3 
 
 Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank 5 
 
 Verses 10 
 
 Song of Khan Zada 11 
 
 The Teak Forest 12 
 
 Valgovind's Boat Song 16 
 
 Kashmiri Song by Juma 17 
 
 Zira: in Captivity 18 
 
 Marriage Thoughts: by Morsellin Khan .... 21 
 
 To the Unattainable: Lament of Mahomed Akram 24 
 
 Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the Stars .... 26 
 
 Reminiscence of Mahomed Akrarn 28 
 
 Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest 30 
 
 Request 32 
 
 Story of Udaipore: Told by Lalla-ji, the Priest . 33 
 
 Valgovind's Song in the Spring 37 
 
 Youth 39 
 
 When Love is Over: Song of Khan Zada ... 40 
 
 "Golden Eyes" 41 
 
 Kotri, by the River 44 
 
 Farewell 47 
 
 Afridi Love 48 
 
 Yasmini 52 
 
 Ojira, to Her Lover 56 
 
 Thoughts: Mahomed Akram 59 
 
 Prayer 61 
 
 The Aloe 63 
 
 Memory 64 
 
 The First Lover 67 
 
 Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside 69
 
 Deserted Gypsy's Song: Hillside Camp .... 70 
 
 The Plains 72 
 
 "Lost Delight": After the Hazara War .... 73 
 
 Unforgotten 76 
 
 Song of Fiaz Ulla 78 
 
 Story of Lilavanti 79 
 
 The Garden by the Bridge 82 
 
 Fate Knows no Tears 86 
 
 Verses: Faiz Ulla 89 
 
 Two Songs by Sitara, of Kashmir 90 
 
 Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan .... 92 
 
 Palm Trees by the Sea 95 
 
 Song by Gulbaz 98 
 
 Kashmiri Song 100 
 
 Reverie of Ormuz the Persian 101 
 
 Sunstroke 104 
 
 Adoration 106 
 
 Three Songs of Zahir-u-Din 109 
 
 Second Song ill 
 
 Third Song, written during Fever 113 
 
 The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks . 115 
 
 Protest: By Zahir-u-Din 117 
 
 Famine Song 121 
 
 The Window Overlooking the Harbour .... 123 
 
 Back to the Border 125 
 
 Reverie: Zahir-u-Din 127 
 
 Sea Song 129 
 
 To the Hills! 131 
 
 Till I Wake 133 
 
 His Rubies: Told by Valgovind 134. 
 
 Song of Taj Mahomed 138 
 
 The Garden of Kama: Kama the Indian Eros . . 139 
 
 Camp Follower's Song, Gomal River 141 
 
 Song of the Colours: by Taj Mahomed . . . . 143 
 
 Lalila, to the Ferengi Lover 147 
 
 On the City Wall 149 
 
 "Love Lightly" 151 
 
 No Rival like the Past 153 
 
 Verse by Taj Mahomed 154 
 
 Lines by Taj Mahomed 155 
 
 There is no Breeze to Cool the Heat of Love . .156 
 
 Malay Song 160 
 
 The Temple Dancing Girl 162 
 
 Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah 164 
 
 Starlight 167
 
 Sampan Song 168 
 
 Song of the Devoted Slave 169 
 
 The Singer i 71 
 
 Malaria 173 
 
 Fancy 175 
 
 Feroza 177 
 
 This Month the Almonds bloom at Kandahar . . 179
 
 India's Love Lyrics
 
 U 
 
 Less than the Dust" 
 
 Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel, 
 Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword, 
 Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord, 
 
 Even less than these ! 
 
 Less than the weed, that grows beside thy door, 
 Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee, 
 Less than the need thou hast in life of me. 
 
 Even less am I. 
 
 Since I, O Lord, am nothing unto thee, 
 See here thy Sword, I make it keen and bright, 
 Love's last reward, Death, comes to me to-night, 
 
 Farewell, Zahir-u-din.
 
 (( 
 
 To the Unattainable" 
 
 Oh, that my blood were water, thou athirst, 
 And thou and I in some far Desert land, 
 How would I shed it gladly, if but first 
 It touched thy lips, before it reached the sand. 
 
 Once, — Ah, the Gods were good to me, — I threw 
 Myself upon a poison snake, that crept 
 Where my Beloved — a lesser love we knew 
 Than this which now consumes me wholly — slept. 
 
 But thou; Alas, what can I do for thee? 
 By Fate, and thine own beauty, set above 
 The need of all or any aid from me, 
 Too high for service, as too far for love.
 
 "In the Early, Pearly Morning": 
 Song by Valgovind 
 
 The fields are full of Poppies, and the skies are 
 
 very blue, 
 By the Temple in the coppice, I wait, Beloved, for 
 
 you. 
 The level land is sunny, and the errant air is gay, 
 With scent of rose and honey; will you come to 
 
 me to-day? 
 
 From carven walls above me, smile lovers; many a 
 
 pair. 
 "Oh, take this rose and love me!" she has twined it 
 
 in her hair. 
 He advances, she retreating, pursues and holds her 
 
 fast, 
 The sculptor left them meeting, in a close embrace 
 
 at last. 
 
 Through centuries together, in the carven stone they 
 
 lie, 
 
 3
 
 In the glow of golden weather, and endless 
 
 azure sky. 
 Oh, that we, who have for pleasure so short and 
 
 scant a stay, 
 Should waste our summer leisure ; will you come to 
 
 me to-day? 
 
 The Temple bells are ringing, for the marriage 
 
 month has come. 
 I hear the women singing, and the throbbing of the 
 
 drum. 
 And when the song is failing, or the drums a 
 
 moment mute, 
 The weirdly wistful wailing of the melancholy 
 
 flute. 
 
 Little life has got to offer, and little man to lose, 
 Since to-day Fate deigns to proffer, Oh wherefore, 
 
 then, refuse 
 To take this transient hour, in the dusky Temple 
 
 gloom 
 While the poppies are in flower, and the mangoe 
 
 trees abloom. 
 
 And if Fate remember later, and come to claim 
 
 her due, 
 What sorrow will be greater than the Joy I had 
 
 with you? 
 For to-day, lit by your laughter, between the 
 
 crushing years, 
 I will chance, in the hereafter, eternities of tears. 
 
 4
 
 Reverie of Mahomed Akram 
 at the Tamarind Tank 
 
 The Desert is parched in the burning sun 
 
 And the grass is scorched and white. 
 
 But the sand is passed, and the march is done, 
 
 We are camping here to-night. 
 
 I sit in the shade of the Temple walls, 
 While the cadenced water evenly falls, 
 And a peacock out of the Jungle calls 
 To another, on yonder tomb. 
 Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom, 
 Strange works of a long dead people loom, 
 
 Obscene and savage and half effaced — 
 
 An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast — 
 
 And curious matings of man and beast; 
 
 What did they mean to the men who are long since 
 
 dust? 
 Whose fingers traced, 
 In this arid waste, 
 
 These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust. 
 
 Strange, weird things that no man may say, 
 Things Humanity hides away; — 
 
 5
 
 Secretly done, — 
 Catch the light of the living day, 
 
 Smile in the sun. 
 Cruel things that man may not name, 
 Naked here, without fear or shame, 
 
 Laughed in the carven stone. 
 
 Deep in the Temple's innermost Shrine is set, 
 
 Where the bats and shadows dwell, 
 The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest 
 
 In its oval shell, 
 By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed, 
 Represented their Great Destroying Power. 
 
 I cannot forget 
 That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower, 
 Love came and destroyed it all in a single hour, 
 Therefore the dual Mystery suits me well. 
 
 Sitting alone, 
 The tank's deep water is cool and sweet, 
 Soothing and fresh to the wayworn feet, 
 
 Dreaming, under the Tamarind shade, 
 One silently thanks the men who made 
 So green a place in this bitter land 
 Of sunburnt sand. 
 
 The peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo, 
 
 Little green, talkative Parrots woo, 
 
 And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance, 
 
 At alien me, in their furtive glance, 
 
 Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see 
 
 The stranger under their Tamarind tree. 
 
 6
 
 Daylight dies, 
 The Camp fires redden like angry eyes, 
 The Tents show white, 
 In the glimmering light, 
 Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies, 
 And the hum of the Camp sounds like the sea, 
 Drifting over the sand to me. 
 
 Afar, in the Desert some wild voice sings 
 To a jangling zither with minor strings, 
 And, under the stars growing keen above, 
 I think of the thing that I love. 
 
 A beautiful thing, alert, serene, 
 With passionate, dreaming, wistful eyes, 
 Dark and deep as mysterious skies, 
 Seen from a vessel at sea. 
 Alas, you drifted away from me, 
 And Time and Space have rushed in between, 
 But they cannot undo the Thing-that-has-been, 
 
 Though it never again may be. 
 You were mine, from dusk until dawning light, 
 For the perfect whole of that bygone night 
 You belonged to me! 
 
 They say that Love is a light thing, 
 A foolish thing and a slight thing, 
 
 A ripe fruit, rotten at core; 
 They speak in this futile fashion 
 To me, who am wracked with passion 
 Tormented beyond compassion, 
 
 For ever and ever more.
 
 They say that Possession lessens a lover's delight, 
 As radiant mornings fade into afternoon. 
 
 I held what I loved in my arms for many a night, 
 Yet ever the morning lightened the sky too soon. 
 
 Beyond our tents the sands stretch level and far, 
 Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees. 
 A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze 
 From the ruinous Temple garden where roses are. 
 
 I dream of the rose-like perfume that fills your hair, 
 Of times when my lips were free of your soft closed 
 
 eyes, 
 
 While down in the tank the waters ripple and rise 
 And the flying foxes silently cleave the air. 
 
 The present is subtly welded into the past, 
 My love of you with the purple Indian dusk, 
 With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk, 
 
 And withering jasmin flowers. 
 My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last, 
 
 While the lonely hours 
 Follow each other, silently, one by one, 
 
 Till the night is almost done. 
 
 Then weary, and drunk with dreams, with my 
 
 garments damp 
 
 And heavy with dew, I wander towards the camp. 
 
 Tired, with a brain in which fancy and fact are 
 
 blent, 
 
 I stumble across the ropes till I reach my tent 
 
 8
 
 And then to rest. To enswceten my sleep with lies, 
 To dream I lie in the light of your long lost eyes, 
 
 My lips set free ; 
 To love and linger over your soft loose hair — 
 To dream I lay your delicate heauty bare 
 
 To solace my fevered eyes. 
 Ah, — if my life might end in a night like this — 
 Drift into death from dreams of your granted kiss!
 
 Verses 
 
 You are my God, and I would fain adore You 
 With sweet and secret rites of other days. 
 
 Burn scented oil in silver lamps before You, 
 
 Pour perfume on Your feet with prayer and 
 
 praise. 
 
 Yet are we one; Your gracious condescension 
 Granted, and grants, the loveliness I crave. 
 
 One, in the perfect sense of Eastern mention, 
 "Gold and the Bracelet, Water and the Wave." 
 
 IO
 
 Song of Khan Zada 
 
 As one may sip a Stranger's Bowl 
 You gave yourself but not your soul. 
 I wonder, now that time has passed, 
 Where you will come to rest at last. 
 
 You gave your beauty for an hour, 
 I held it gently as a flower, 
 You wished to leave me, told me so,- 
 I kissed your feet and let you go. 
 
 1 1
 
 The Teak Forest 
 
 Whether I loved you who shall say? 
 Whether I drifted down your way 
 In the endless River of Chance and Change, 
 And you woke the strange 
 Unknown longings that have no names, 
 But burn us all in their hidden flames, 
 Who shall say? 
 
 Life is a strange and a wayward thing: 
 We heard the bells of the Temples ring, 
 The married children, in passing, sing. 
 The month of marriage, the month of spring, 
 Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers 
 That bloom in a fiercer light than ours, 
 And, under a sky more fiercely blue, 
 I came to you ! 
 
 You told me tales of your vivid life 
 Where death was cruel and danger rife — 
 Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees, 
 Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze, 
 Of southern noontides and eastern nights, 
 Where love grew frantic with strange delights, 
 While men were slaying and maidens danced, 
 
 12
 
 Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced. 
 
 Then, swift as a swallow heading south, 
 
 I kissed your mouth! 
 
 One night when the plains were bathed in blood 
 
 From sunset light in a crimson flood, 
 
 We wandered under the young teak trees 
 
 Whose branches whined in the light night breeze; 
 
 You led me down to the water's brink, 
 
 "The Spring where the Panthers come to drink 
 
 At night; there is always water here 
 
 Be the season never so parched and sere." 
 
 Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men? 
 
 I fain would have tasted your life-blood then. 
 
 The night fell swiftly; this sudden land 
 
 Can never lend us a twilight strand 
 
 'Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night, 
 
 But takes — as it gives — at once, the light. 
 
 We laid us down on the steep hillside, 
 
 While far below us wild peacocks cried, 
 
 And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass, 
 
 The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass. 
 
 We listened ; knew not whether they went 
 
 On love or hunger the more intent. 
 
 And under your kisses I hardly knew 
 
 Whether I loved or hated you. 
 
 But your words were flame and your kisses fire, 
 And who shall resist a strong desire? 
 Not I, whose life is a broken boat 
 
 13
 
 On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat. 
 And, whether I came in love or hate, 
 That I came to you was written by Fate 
 In every hue of the blood-red sky, 
 In every tone of the peacocks' cry. 
 
 While every gust of the Jungle night 
 Was fanning the flame you had set alight. 
 For these things have power to stir the blood 
 And compel us all to their own chance mood. 
 And to love or not we are no more free 
 Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea. 
 
 We are ever and always slaves of these, 
 
 Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze, 
 
 Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air, 
 
 Of the half heard howl from the far off lair. 
 
 These chance things master us ever. Compel 
 
 To the heights of Heaven, the depths of Hell. 
 
 Whether I love you? You do not ask, 
 Nor waste yourself on the thankless task. 
 I give your kisses at least return, 
 What matter whether they freeze or burn. 
 I feel the strength of your fervent arms, 
 What matter whether it heals or harms. 
 
 You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent. 
 You ask no question, but rest content 
 So I am with you to take your kiss, 
 And perhaps I value you more for this. 
 
 14
 
 For this is Wisdom; to love, to live, 
 
 To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give. 
 
 To ask no question, to make no prayer, 
 
 To kiss the lips and caress the hair, 
 
 Speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow, — 
 
 To have, — to hold, — and, — in time, — let go! 
 
 And this is our Wisdom : we rest together 
 
 On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather, 
 
 And watch the skies as they pale and burn, 
 
 The golden stars in their orbits turn, 
 
 While Love is with us, and Time and Peace, 
 
 And life has nothing to give but these. 
 
 But, whether you love me, who shall say, 
 
 Or whether you, drifting down my way 
 
 In the great sad River of Chance and Change, 
 
 With your looks so weary and words so strange, 
 
 Lit my soul from some hidden flame 
 
 To a passionate longing without a name, 
 
 Who shall say? 
 Not I, who am but a broken boat, 
 Content for a while to drift afloat 
 In the little noontide of love's delights 
 
 Between two Nights. 
 
 15
 
 ValgovincTs Boat Song 
 
 Waters glisten and sunbeams quiver, 
 
 The wind blows fresh and free. 
 
 Take my boat to your breast, O River! 
 Carry me out to Sea! 
 
 This land is laden with fruit and grain, 
 
 With never a place left free for flowers, 
 
 A fruitful mother; but I am fain 
 
 For brides in their early bridal hours. 
 
 Take my boat to your breast, O River! 
 Carry me out to Sea! 
 
 The Sea, beloved by a thousand ships, 
 
 Is maiden ever, and fresh and free. 
 
 Ah, for the touch of her cool green lips, 
 Carry me out to Sea! 
 
 Take my boat to your breast, dear River, 
 And carry it out to Sea! 
 
 16
 
 Kashmiri Song by Juma 
 
 You never loved me, and yet to save me, 
 
 One unforgetable night you gave me 
 
 Such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights 
 
 Receive from clouds, in northern, Auroral nights. 
 
 Such keen communion as the frozen mere 
 
 Has with immaculate moonlight, cold and clear. 
 
 And all desire, 
 
 Like failing fire, 
 
 Died slowly, faded surely, and sank to rest 
 
 Against the delicate dullness of your breast. 
 
 17
 
 Zira: in Captivity 
 
 Love me a little, Lord, or let me go, 
 
 I am so weary walking to and fro 
 
 Through all your lonely halls that were so sweet 
 
 Did they but echo to your coming feet. 
 
 When by the flowered scrolls of lace-like stone 
 Our women's windows — I am left alone, 
 Across the yellow Desert, looking forth, 
 I see the purple hills towards the north. 
 
 Behind those jagged Mountains' lilac crest 
 Once lay the captive bird's small rifled nest. 
 There was my brother slain, my sister bound; 
 His blood, her tears, drunk by the thirsty ground. 
 
 Then, while the burning village smoked on high, 
 And desecrated all the peaceful sky, 
 They took us captive, us, born frank and free, 
 On fleet, strong camels through the sandy sea. 
 
 Yet, when we rested, night-times, on the sand 
 By the rare waters of this dreary land, 
 Our captors, ere the camp was wrapped in sleep, 
 
 18
 
 Talked, and I listened, and forgot to weep. 
 
 "Is he not brave and fair?" they asked, "our King, 
 Slender as one tall palm-tree by a spring; 
 Erect, serene, with gravely brilliant eyes, 
 As deeply dark as are these desert skies. 
 
 "Truly no bitter fate," they said, and smiled, 
 "Awaits the beauty of this captured child!" 
 Then something in my heart began to sing, 
 And secretly I longed to see the King. 
 
 Sometimes the other maidens sat in tears, 
 Sometimes, consoled, they jested at their fears, 
 Musing what lovers Time to them would bring; 
 But I was silent, thinking of the King. 
 
 Till, when the weary endless sands were passed, 
 When, far to south, the city rose at last, 
 All speech forsook me and my eyelids fell, 
 Since I already loved my Lord so well. 
 
 Then the division: some were sent away 
 To merchants in the city; some, they say, 
 To summer palaces, beyond the walls. 
 But me they took straight to the Sultan's halls. 
 
 Every morning I would wake and say 
 "Ah, sisters, shall I see our Lord to-day?" 
 The women robed me, perfumed me, and smiled ; 
 "When were his feet unfleet to pleasure, child ?" 
 
 *9,
 
 And tales they told me of his deeds in war, 
 Of how his name was reverenced afar; 
 And, crouching closer in the lamp's faint glow, 
 They told me of his beauty, speaking low. 
 
 What need, what need? the women wasted art; 
 I love you with every fibre of my heart 
 Already. My God ! when did I not love you, 
 In life, in death, when shall I not love you? 
 
 You never seek me. All day long I lie 
 Watching the changes of the far-off sky 
 Behind the lattice-work of carven stone. 
 And all night long, alas! I lie alone. 
 
 But you come never. Ah, my Lord the King, 
 How can you find it well to do this thing? 
 Come once, come only: sometimes, as I lie, 
 I doubt if I shall see you first, or die. 
 
 Ah, could I hear your footsteps at the door 
 Hallow the lintel and caress the floor, 
 Then I might drink your beauty, satisfied, 
 Die of delight, ere you could reach my side. 
 
 Alas, you come not, Lord: life's flame burns low, 
 Faint for a loveliness it may not know, 
 Faint for your face, Oh, come — come soon to me — 
 Lest, though you should not, Death should, set me 
 
 free! 
 
 20
 
 Marriage Thoughts: by Morsellin 
 Khan 
 
 Bridegroom 
 
 I give you my house and my lands, all golden 
 
 with harvest; 
 My sword, my shield, and my jewels, the 
 
 spoils of my strife, 
 My strength and my dreams, and aught I have 
 
 gathered of glory, 
 And to-night — to-night, I shall give you my 
 
 very life. 
 
 Bride 
 
 I may not raise my eyes, O my Lord, towards 
 
 you, 
 And I may not speak: what matter? my voice 
 
 would fail. 
 But through my downcast lashes, feeling your 
 
 beauty, 
 I shiver and burn with pleasure beneath my 
 
 veil. 
 
 Younger Sisters 
 
 We throw sweet perfume upon her head, 
 
 21
 
 And delicate flowers round her bed. 
 
 Ah, would that it were our turn to wed! 
 
 Mother 
 
 I see my daughter, vaguely, through my tears, 
 (Ah, lost caresses of my early years!) 
 I see the bridegroom, King of men in truth ! 
 (Ah, my first lover, and my vanished youth!) 
 
 Bride 
 
 Almost I dread this night. My senses fail ine. 
 How shall I dare to clasp a thing so dear? 
 Many have feared your name, but I your 
 
 beauty. 
 Lord of my life, be gentle to my fear! 
 
 Younger Sisters 
 
 In the softest silk is our sister dressed, 
 With silver rubies upon her breast, 
 Where a dearer treasure to-night will rest. 
 
 Dancing Girls 
 
 See! his hair is like silk, and his teeth are 
 
 whiter 
 Than whitest of jasmin flowers. Pity they 
 
 marry him thus. 
 I would change my jewels against his caresses. 
 Verily, sisters, this marriage is greatly a loss to 
 
 us! 
 
 22
 
 Bride 
 
 Would that the music ceased and the night 
 
 drew round us, 
 With solitude, shadow, and sound of closing 
 
 doors, 
 So that our lips might meet and our beings 
 
 mingle, 
 While mine drank deep of the essence, beloved, 
 
 of yours. 
 
 Passing mendicant 
 
 Out of the joy of your marriage feast, 
 
 Oh, brothers, be good to me. 
 The way is long and the Shrine is far, 
 
 Where my weary feet would be. 
 
 And feasting is always somewhat sad 
 
 To those outside the door — 
 Still; Love is only a dream, and Life 
 
 Itself is hardly more! 
 
 23
 
 To the Unattainable: 
 Lament of Mahomed Akram 
 
 I would have taken Golden Stars from the sky 
 
 for your necklace, 
 I would have shaken rose-leaves for your rest from 
 
 all the rose-trees. 
 
 But you had no need ; the short sweet grass sufficed 
 
 for your slumber, 
 And you took no heed of such trifles as gold or a 
 
 necklace. 
 
 There is an hour, at twilight, too heavy with 
 
 memory. 
 There is a flower that I fear, for your hair had its 
 
 fragrance. 
 
 I would have squandered Youth for you, and its 
 
 hope and its promise, 
 Before you wandered, careless, away from my use- 
 less passion. 
 
 24
 
 But what is the use of my speech, since I know of 
 
 no words to recall you? 
 I am praying that Time may teach, you, your 
 
 Cruelty, me, Forgetfulness. 
 
 25
 
 Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the 
 Stars 
 
 Oh, Silver Stars that shine on what I love, 
 
 Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes, — 
 
 Send, from your calm serenity above, 
 
 Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies. 
 
 Broken, forlorn, upon the Desert sand 
 
 That sucks these tears, and utterly abased, 
 
 Looking across the lonely, level land, 
 
 With thoughts more desolate than any waste. 
 
 Planets that shine on what I so adore, 
 
 Now thrown, the hour is late, in careless rest, 
 
 Protect that sleep, which I may watch no more, 
 I, the cast out, dismissed and dispossessed. 
 
 Far in the hillside camp, in slumber lies 
 
 What my worn eyes worship but never see. 
 
 Happier Stars! your myriad silver eyes 
 Feast on the quiet face denied to me. 
 
 Loved with a love beyond all words or sense, 
 Lost with a grief beyond the saltest tear, 
 
 26
 
 So lovely, so removed, remote, and hence 
 So doubly and so desperately dear! 
 
 Stars! from your skies so purple and so calm, 
 That through the centuries your secrets keep, 
 
 Send to this worn-out brain some Occult Balm, 
 Send me, for many nights so sleepless, sleep. 
 
 And ere the sunshine of the Desert jars 
 My sense with sorrow and another day, 
 
 Through your soft Magic, oh, my Silver Stars! 
 Turn sleep to Death in some mysterious way. 
 
 27
 
 Reminiscence of Mahomed Akram 
 
 I shall never forget you, never. Never escape 
 Your memory woven about the beautiful things of 
 
 life. 
 
 The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound 
 
 When it comes unsought 
 On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or pale Tuberose. 
 Any one of the sweet white fragrant flowers, 
 Flowers I used to love and lay in your hair. 
 
 Sunset is terribly sad. I saw you stand 
 Tall against the red and the gold like a slender 
 
 palm ; 
 The light wind stirred your hair as you waved 
 
 your hand, 
 Waved farewell, as ever, serene and calm, 
 To me, the passion-wearied and tost and torn, 
 Riding down the road in the gathering grey. 
 
 Since that day 
 The sunset red is empty, the gold forlorn. 
 
 Often across the Banqueting board at nights 
 Men linger about your name in careless praise 
 
 28
 
 The name that cuts deep into my soul like a knife ; 
 And the gay guest-faces and flowers and leaves and 
 
 lights 
 Fade away from the failing sense in a haze, 
 
 And the music sways 
 Far away in unmeasured distance. . . . 
 
 I cannot forget — 
 I cannot escape. What are the Stars to me? 
 Stars that meant so much, too much, in my youth ; 
 Stars that sparkled about your eyes, 
 Made a radiance round your hair, 
 
 What are they now? 
 
 Lingering lights of a Finished Feast, 
 Little lingering sparks rather, 
 
 Of a Light that is long gone out. 
 
 29
 
 Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest 
 
 He loved the Plant with a keen delight, 
 A passionate fervour, strange to see, 
 
 Tended it ardently, day and night, 
 Yet never a flower lit up the tree. 
 
 The leaves were succulent, thick, and green, 
 And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem 
 
 Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen, 
 To catch at aught that molested them. 
 
 But though they nurtured it day and night, 
 With love and labour, the child and he 
 
 Were never granted the longed-for sight 
 Of a flower crowning the twisted tree. 
 
 Until one evening a wayworn Priest 
 
 Stopped for the night in the Temple shade 
 
 And shared the fare of their simple feast 
 Under the vines and the jasmin laid. 
 
 He, later, wanderng round the flowers 
 Paused awhile by the blossomless tree. 
 
 The man said, "May it be fault of ours, 
 That never its buds my eyes may see? 
 
 3°
 
 "Aslip it came from the further East 
 
 Many a sunlit summer ago." 
 "It grows in our Jungles," said the Priest, 
 
 "Men see it rarely; but this I know, 
 
 "The Jungle people worship it; say 
 They bury a child around its roots — 
 
 Bury it living: — the only way 
 
 To crimson glory of flowers and fruits." 
 
 He spoke in whispers; his furtive glance 
 Probing the depths of the garden shade. 
 
 The man came closer, with eyes askance, 
 The child beside them shivered, afraid. 
 
 A cold wind drifted about the three, 
 Jarring the spines with a hungry sound, 
 
 1 he spines that grew on the snakelike tree 
 And guarded its roots beneath the ground. 
 
 After the fall of the summer rain 
 The plant was glorious, redly gay, 
 
 Blood-red with blossom. Never again 
 Men saw the child in the Temple play. 
 
 31
 
 Request 
 
 Give me your self one hour; I do not crave 
 For any love, or even thought, of me. 
 
 Come, as a Sultan may caress a slave 
 And then forget for ever, utterly. 
 
 Come! as west winds, that passing, cool and wet, 
 O'er desert places, leave them fields in flower 
 
 And all my life, for I shall not forget, 
 
 Will keep the fragrance of that perfect hour! 
 
 32
 
 Story of Udaipore: 
 Told by Lalla-ji, the Priest 
 
 "And when the Summer Heat is great, 
 
 And every hour intense, 
 The Moghra, with its subtle flowers, 
 
 Intoxicates the sense." 
 
 The Coco palms stood tall and slim, against the 
 
 golden-glow, 
 And all their grey and graceful plumes were waving 
 
 to and fro. 
 
 She lay forgetful in the boat, and watched the 
 
 dying Sun 
 
 Sink slowly lakewards, while the stars replaced him, 
 
 one by one. 
 
 She saw the marble Temple walls long white 
 
 reflections make, 
 The echoes of their silvery bells were blown across 
 
 the lake. 
 
 The evening air was very sweet; from off the island 
 
 bowers 
 
 33
 
 Came scents of Moghra trees in bloom, and 
 
 Oleander flowers. 
 
 "The Moghra flowers that smell so sweet 
 When love's young fancies play; 
 
 The acrid Moghra flowers, still sweet 
 Though love be burnt away." 
 
 The boat went drifting, ucontrolled, the rower 
 
 rowed no more, 
 But deftly turned the slender prow towards the 
 
 further shore. 
 
 The dying sunset touched with gold the Jasmin in 
 
 his hair; 
 His eyes were darkly luminous: she looked and 
 
 found him fair. 
 
 And so persuasively he spoke, she could not say him 
 
 nay, 
 And when his young hands took her own, she smiled 
 
 and let them stay. 
 
 And all the youth awake in him, all love of Love 
 
 in her, 
 All scents of white and subtle flowers that filled 
 
 the twilight air 
 
 Combined together with the night in kind 
 
 conspiracy 
 
 34
 
 To do Love service, while the boat went drifting 
 
 onwards, free. 
 
 "The Moghra flowers, the Moghra flowers, 
 While Youth's quick pulses play 
 
 They are so sweet, they still are sweet, 
 Though passion burns away." 
 
 Low in the boat the lovers lay, and from his sable 
 
 curls 
 
 The Jasmin flowers slipped away to rest among the 
 
 girl's. 
 
 Oh, silver lake and silver night and tender silver 
 
 sky! 
 Where as the hours passed, the moon rose white and 
 
 cold on high. 
 
 "The Moghra flowers, the Moghra flowers, 
 
 So dear to Youth at play ; 
 The small and subtle Moghra flowers 
 
 That only last a day." 
 
 Suddenly, frightened, she awoke, and waking vaguely 
 
 saw 
 The boat had stranded in the sedge that fringed 
 
 the further shore. 
 
 The breeze grown chilly, swayed the palms; she 
 
 heard, still half awake, 
 
 35
 
 A prowling jackal's hungry cry blown faintly o'er 
 
 the lake. 
 
 She shivered, but she turned to kiss his soft, 
 
 remembered face, 
 Lit by the pallid light he lay, in Youth's abandoned 
 
 grace. 
 
 But as her lips met his she paused, in terror and 
 
 dismay, 
 The white moon showed her by her side asleep a 
 
 Leper lay. 
 
 "Ah, Moghra flowers, white Moghra flowers, 
 
 All love is blind, they say; 
 The Moghra flowers, so sweet, so sweet, 
 
 Though love be burnt away!" 
 
 36
 
 Valgovind's Song in the Spring 
 
 The Temple bells are ringing, 
 The young green corn is springing, 
 
 And the marriage month is drawing very 
 
 near. 
 
 I lie hidden in the grass, 
 
 And I count the moments pass, 
 
 For the month of marriages is drawing near. 
 
 Soon, ah, soon, the women spread 
 The appointed bridal bed 
 
 With hibiscus buds and crimson marriage 
 
 flowers, 
 Where, when all the songs are done, 
 And the dear dark night begun, 
 
 I shall hold her in my happy arms for hours. 
 
 She is young and very sweet, 
 From the silver on her feet 
 
 To the silver and the flowers in her hair, 
 And her beauty makes me swoon, 
 As the Moghra trees at noon 
 
 Intoxicate the hot and quivering air. 
 
 37
 
 Ah, I would the hours were fleet 
 As her silver circled feet, 
 
 I am weary of the daytime and the night ; 
 I am weary unto death, 
 Oh my rose with jasmin breath, 
 
 With this longing for your beauty and your 
 
 light. 
 
 38
 
 Youth 
 
 I am not sure if I knew the truth 
 
 What his case or crime might be, 
 I only know that he pleaded Youth, 
 
 A beautiful, golden plea! 
 
 Youth, with its sunlit, passionate eyes, 
 
 Its roseate velvet skin — 
 A plea to cancel a thousand lies, 
 
 Or a thousand nights of sin. 
 
 The men who judged him were old and grey, 
 
 Their eyes and their senses dim, 
 He brought the light of a warm Spring day 
 
 To the Court-house bare and grim. 
 
 Could he plead guilty in a lovelier way? 
 His judges acquitted him. 
 
 39
 
 When Love is Over 
 Song of Khan Zada 
 
 Only in August my heart was aflame, 
 
 Catching the scent of your Wind-stirred hair, 
 
 Now, though you spread it to soften my sleep 
 Through the night, I should hardly care. 
 
 Only last August I drank that water 
 
 Because it had chanced to cool your hands; 
 
 When love is over, how little of love 
 Even the lover understands! 
 
 40
 
 "Golden Eyes" 
 
 Oh Amber Eyes, oh Golden Eyes! 
 
 Oh Eyes so softly gay! 
 Wherein swift fancies fall and rise, 
 
 Grow dark and fade away. 
 Eyes like a little limpid pool 
 
 That holds a sunset sky, 
 While on its surface, calm and cool, 
 
 Blue water lilies lie. 
 
 Oh Tender Eyes, oh Wistful Eyes, 
 
 You smiled on me one day, 
 And all my life, in glad surprise, 
 
 Leapt up and pleaded "Stay!" 
 Alas, oh cruel, starlike eyes, 
 
 So grave and yet so gay, 
 You went to lighten other skies, 
 
 Smiled once and passed away. 
 
 Oh, you whom I name "Golden Eyes,' 
 
 Perhaps I used to know 
 Your beauty under other skies 
 
 In lives lived long ago. 
 Perhaps I rowed with galley slaves, 
 
 41
 
 Whose labour never ceased, 
 
 To bring across Phoenician waves 
 
 Your treasure from the East. 
 
 Maybe you were an Emperor then 
 
 And I a favourite slave ; 
 Some youth, whom from the lions' den 
 
 You vainly tried to save! 
 Maybe I reigned, a mighty King, 
 
 The early nations knew, 
 And you were some slight captive thing, 
 
 Some maiden whom I slew. 
 
 Perhaps, adrift on desert shores 
 
 Beside some shipwrecked prow, 
 I gladly gave my life for yours. 
 
 Would I might give it now! 
 Or on some sacrificial stone 
 
 Strange Gods we satisfied, 
 Perhaps you stooped and left a throne 
 
 To kiss me ere I died. 
 
 Perhaps, still further back than this, 
 
 In times ere men were men, 
 You granted me a moment's bliss 
 
 In some dark desert den, 
 When, with your amber eyes alight 
 
 With iridescent flame, 
 And fierce desire for love's delight, 
 
 Towards my lair you came 
 
 42
 
 All laughing, ever-brilliant eyes, 
 
 These things men may not know, 
 But something in your radiance lies, 
 
 That, centuries ago, 
 Lit up my life in one wild blaze 
 
 Of infinite desire 
 To revel in your golden rays, 
 
 Or in your light expire. 
 
 If this, oh Strange Ringed Eyes, be true, 
 
 That through all changing lives 
 This longing love I have for you 
 
 Eternally survives, 
 May I not sometimes dare to dream 
 
 In some far time to be 
 Your softly golden eyes may gleam 
 
 Responsively on me? 
 
 Ah gentle, subtly changing eyes, 
 
 You smiled on me one day, 
 And all my life in glad surprise 
 
 Leaped up, imploring "Stay!" 
 Alas, alas, oh Golden Eyes, 
 
 So cruel and so gay, 
 You went to shine in other skies, 
 
 Smiled once and passed away. 
 
 43
 
 Kotri, by the River 
 
 At Kotri, by the river, when the evening's sun is 
 
 low, 
 The waving palm trees quiver, the golden waters 
 
 glow, 
 The shining ripples shiver, descending to the sea; 
 At Kotri, by the river, she used to wait for me. 
 
 So young, she was, and slender, so pale with 
 
 wistful eyes 
 As luminous and tender as Kotri's twilight skies. 
 Her face broke into flowers, red flowers at the 
 
 mouth, 
 Her voice, — she sang for hours like bulbuls in the 
 
 south. 
 
 We sat beside the water through burning summer 
 
 days, 
 
 And many things I taught her of Life and all its 
 
 ways 
 
 Of Love, man's loveliest duty, of Passion's reckless 
 
 pain, 
 
 Of Youth, whose transient beauty comes once, but 
 
 not again. 
 
 44
 
 She lay and laughed and listened beside the water's 
 
 edge. 
 The glancing river glistened and glinted through 
 
 the sedge. 
 Green parrots flew above her and, as the daylight 
 
 died, 
 Her young arms drew her lover more closely to her 
 
 side. 
 
 Oh days so warm and golden ! oh nights so cool 
 
 and still! 
 
 When Love would not be holden, and Pleasure had 
 
 his will. 
 
 Days, when in after leisure, content to rest we lay, 
 
 Nights, when her lips' soft pressure drained all my 
 
 life away. 
 
 And while we sat together, benea.h the Babul trees, 
 The fragrant, sultry weather cooled by the river 
 
 breeze, 
 If passion faltered ever, and left the senses free, 
 We heard the tireless river decending to the sea. 
 
 I know not where she wandered, or went in after 
 
 days, 
 Or if her youth she squandered in Love's more 
 
 doubtful ways. 
 Perhaps, beside the river, she died, still young and 
 
 fair ; 
 Perchance the grasses quiver above her slumber 
 
 there. 
 
 45
 
 At Kotri, by the river, maybe I too shall sleep 
 The sleep that lasts for ever, too deep for dreams; 
 
 too deep. 
 Maybe among the shingle and sand of floods to be 
 Her dust and mine may mingle and float away to 
 
 sea. 
 
 Ah Kotri, by the river, when evening's sun is low, 
 Your faint reflections quiver, your golden ripples 
 
 glow. 
 You knew, oh Kotri river, that love which could 
 
 not last. 
 For me your palms still shiver with passions of the 
 
 past. 
 
 46
 
 Farewell 
 
 Farewell, Aziz, it was not mine to fold you 
 Against my heart for any length of days. 
 
 I had no loveliness, alas, to hold you, 
 
 No siren voice, no charm that lovers praise. 
 
 Yet, in the midst of grief and desolation, 
 Solace I my despairing soul with this: 
 
 Once, for my life's eternal consolation, 
 You lent my lips your loveliness to kiss. 
 
 Ah, that one night! I think Love's very essence 
 Distilled itself from out my joy and pain, 
 
 Like tropical trees, whose fervid inflorescence 
 Glows, gleams, and dies, never to bloom again. 
 
 Often I marvel how I met the morning 
 
 With living eyes after that night with you, 
 
 Ah, how I cursed the wan, white light for dawning, 
 And mourned the paling stars, as each withdrew! 
 
 Yet I, even I, who am less than dust before you, 
 Less than the lowest lintel of your door, 
 
 Was given one breathless midnight, to adore you. 
 Fate, having granted this, can give no more! 
 
 47
 
 Afridi Love 
 
 Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful 
 To me, who loved you so, for one short night, 
 
 For one brief space of darkness, though my absence 
 Did but endure until the dawning light; 
 
 Since all your beauty — which was mine — you 
 
 squandered 
 
 On that which now lies dead across your door ; 
 See here this knife, made keen and bright to kill you. 
 
 You shall not see the sun rise any more. 
 
 Lie still! Lie still! In all the empty village 
 Who is there left to hear or heed your cry? 
 
 All are gone to labour in the valley, 
 
 Who will return before your time to die? 
 
 No use to struggle ; when I found you sleeping, 
 I took your hands and bound them to your side, 
 
 And both these slender feet, too apt at straying, 
 Down to the cot on which you lie are tied. 
 
 Lie still, Beloved ; that dead thing lying yonder, 
 I hated and I killed, but love is sweet, 
 
 48
 
 And you are more than sweet to me, who love you, 
 Who decked my eyes with dust from off your 
 
 feet. 
 
 Give me your lips; Ah, lovely and disloyal 
 Give me yourself again ; before you go 
 
 Down through the darkness of the Great, Blind 
 
 Portal, 
 All of life's best and basest you must know. 
 
 Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile 
 I held you gently, as one holds a flower: 
 
 But now, God knows, what use to still be tender 
 To one whose life is done within an hour? 
 
 I hurt? What then? Death will not hurt you, 
 
 dearest, 
 
 As you hurt me, for just a single night, 
 You call me cruel, who laid my life in ruins 
 
 To gain one little moment of delight. 
 
 Look up, look out, across the open doorway 
 
 The sunlight streams. The distant hills are 
 
 blue. 
 
 Look at the pale, pink peach trees in our garden, 
 
 Sweet fruit will come of them; — but not for 
 
 you. 
 
 The fair, far snow, upon those jagged mountains 
 That gnaw against the hard blue Afghan sky 
 
 49
 
 Will soon descend, set free by summer sunshine. 
 You will not see those torrents sweeping by. 
 
 The world is not for you. From this day forward, 
 You must lie still alone ; who would not lie 
 
 Alone for one night only, though returning 
 I was, when earliest dawn should break the sky. 
 
 There lies my lute, and many strings are broken, 
 Some one was playing it, and some one tore 
 
 The silken tassels round my Hookah woven ; 
 Some one who plays, and smokes, and loves, no 
 
 more! 
 
 Some one who took last night his fill of pleasure, 
 As I took mine at dawn! The knife went home 
 
 Straight through his heart! God only knows my 
 
 rapture 
 Bathing my chill hands in the warm red foam. 
 
 And so I pain you? This is only loving, 
 
 Wait till I kill you! Ah, this soft, curled hair! 
 
 Surely the fault was mine, to love and leave you 
 Even a single night, you are so fair. 
 
 Cold steel is very cooling to the fervour 
 
 Of over passionate ones, Beloved, like you. 
 
 Nay, turn your lips to mine. Not quite unlovely 
 They are as yet, as yet, though quite untrue. 
 
 What will your brother say, to-night returning 
 
 50
 
 With laden camels homewards to the hills, 
 Finding you dead, and me asleep beside you, 
 Will he awake me first before he kills? 
 
 For I shall sleep. Here on the cot beside you 
 When you, my Heart's Delight, are cold in death. 
 
 When your young heart and restless lips are silent, 
 Grown chilly, even beneath my burning breath. 
 
 When I have slowly drawn my knife across you, 
 Taking my pleasure as I see you swoon, 
 
 I shall sleep sound, worn out by love's last fervour, 
 And then, God grant your kinsmen kill me soon ! 
 
 5 1
 
 Yasmini 
 
 At night, when Passion's ebbing tide 
 
 Left bare the Sands of Truth, 
 Yasmini, resting by my side, 
 
 Spoke softly of her youth. 
 
 "And one" she said "was tall and slim, 
 
 Two crimson rose leaves made his mouth, 
 
 And I was fain to follow him 
 Down to his village in the South. 
 
 "He was to build a hut hard by 
 
 The stream where palms were growing, 
 
 We were to live, and love, and lie, 
 And watch the water flowing. 
 
 "Ah, dear, delusive, distant shore, 
 
 By dreams of futile fancy gilt! 
 The riverside we never saw, 
 
 The palm leaf hut was never built! 
 
 "One had a Tope of Mangoe trees, 
 Where early morning, noon and late, 
 
 The Persian wheels, with patient ease, 
 Brought up their liquid, silver freight. 
 
 52
 
 "And he was fain to rise and reach 
 That garden sloping to the sea, 
 
 Whose groves along the wave-swept beach 
 Should shelter him and love and me. 
 
 "Doubtless, upon that western shore 
 With ripe fruit falling to the ground, 
 
 There dwells the Peace he hungered for, 
 The lovely Peace we never found. 
 
 "Then there came one with eager eyes 
 And keen sword, ready for the fray. 
 
 He missed the storms of Northern skies, 
 The reckless raid and skirmish gay! 
 
 "He rose from dreams of war's alarms, 
 To make his daggers keen and bright, 
 
 Desiring, in my very arms. 
 
 The fiercer rapture of the fight! 
 
 "He left me soon ; too soon, and sought 
 The stronger, earlier love again. 
 
 News reached me from the Cabul Court, 
 Afterwards nothing; doubtless slain. 
 
 "Doubtless his brilliant, haggard eyes, 
 Long since took leave of life and light, 
 
 And those lithe limbs I used to prize 
 Feasted the jackal and the kite. 
 
 "But the most loved ! his sixteen years 
 
 53
 
 Shone in his cheeks' transparent red. 
 My kisses were his first: my tears 
 Fell on his face when he was dead. 
 
 "He died, he died, I speak the truth, 
 
 Though light love leave his memory dim, 
 
 He was the Lover of my Youth 
 
 And all my youth went down with him. 
 
 "For passion ebbs and passion flows, 
 
 But under every new caress 
 The riven heart more keenly knows 
 
 Its own inviolate faithfulness. 
 
 "Our Gods are kind and still deem fit 
 As in old days, with those to lie, 
 
 Whose silent hearths are yet unlit 
 By the soft light of infancy. 
 
 "Therefore, one strange, mysterious night 
 Alone within the Temple shade, 
 
 Recipient of a God's delight 
 I lay enraptured, unafraid. 
 
 "Also to me the boon was given, 
 
 But mourning quickly followed mirth, 
 
 My son, whose father stooped from Heaven, 
 Died in the moment of his birth. 
 
 "When from the war beyond the seas 
 
 54
 
 The reckless Lancers home returned, 
 Their spoils were laid across my knees 
 About my lips their kisses burned. 
 
 "Back from the Comradeship of Death, 
 Free from the Friendship of the Sword, 
 
 With brilliant eyes and famished breath 
 They came to me for their reward. 
 
 "Why do I tell you all these things, 
 
 Baring my life to you, unsought? 
 When Passion folds his wearied wings 
 
 Sleep should be follower, never Thought. 
 
 "Ay, let us sleep. The window pane 
 
 Grows pale against the purple sky. 
 The dawn is with us once again, 
 
 The dawn ; which always means good-bye." 
 
 Within her little trellised room, beside the palm- 
 fringed sea, 
 She wakeful in the scented gloom, spoke of her 
 
 youth to me. 
 
 ss
 
 Ojira, to Her Lover 
 
 I am waiting in the desert, looking out towards the 
 
 sunset, 
 And counting every moment till we meet. 
 I am waiting by the marshes and I tremble and I 
 
 listen 
 Till the soft sands thrill beneath your coming feet. 
 
 Till I see you, tall and slender, standing clear 
 
 against the skyline 
 A graceful shade across the lingering red, 
 While your hair the breezes ruffle, turns to silver in 
 
 the twilight, 
 And makes a fair faint aureole round your head. 
 
 Far away towards the sunset I can see a narrow 
 
 river, 
 That unwinds itself in red tranquillity; 
 I can hear its rippled meeting, and the gurgle of its 
 
 greeting, 
 As it mingles with the loved and long sought sea. 
 
 In the purple sky above me showing dark against 
 
 the starlight, 
 Long wavering flights of homeward birds fly low, 
 
 56
 
 They cry each one to the other, and their weird and 
 
 wistful calling, 
 Makes most melancholy music as they go. 
 
 Oh, my dearest hasten, hasten! It is lonely here. 
 
 Already 
 Have I heard the jackals' first assemhling cry, 
 And among the purple shadows of the mangroves and 
 
 the marshes 
 Fitful echoes of their footfalls passing by. 
 
 Ah, come soon ! my arms are empty, and so weary 
 
 for your beauty, 
 I am thirsty for the music of your voice. 
 Come to make the marshes joyous with the 
 
 sweetness of your presence, 
 Let your nearing feet bid all the sands rejoice! 
 
 My hands, my lips are feverish with the longing 
 
 and the waiting 
 And no softness of the twilight soothes their heat, 
 Till I see your radiant eyes, shining stars beneath 
 
 the starlight, 
 Till I kiss the slender coolness of your feet. 
 
 Ah, loveliest, most reluctant, when you lay yourself 
 
 beside me. 
 All the planets reel around me — fade away, 
 And the sands grow dim, uncertain, — I stretch out 
 
 my hands towards you 
 
 57
 
 While I try to speak but know not what 1 say! 
 
 I am faint with love and longing, and my burning 
 
 eyes are gazing 
 Where the furtive Jackals wage their famished 
 
 strife, 
 Oh, your shadow on the mangroves! and your step 
 
 upon the sandhills, — 
 This is the loveliest evening of my Life ! 
 
 58
 
 Thoughts: Mahomed Akram 
 
 If some day this body of mine were burned 
 (It found no favour alas! with you) 
 And the ashes scattered abroad, unurned, 
 Would Love die also, would Thought die too? 
 But who can answer, or who can trust, 
 No dreams would harry the windblown dust? 
 
 Were I laid away in the furrows deep 
 Secure from jackal and passing plough, 
 Would your eyes not follow me still through sleep 
 Torment me then as they torture now? 
 
 Would you ever have loved me, Golden 
 
 Eyes, 
 
 Had I done aught better or otherwise? 
 
 Was I overspeechful, or did you yearn 
 
 When I sat silent, for songs or speech? 
 
 Ah, Beloved, I had been so apt to learn, 
 
 So apt, had you only cared to teach. 
 
 But time for silence and song is done, 
 You wanted nothing, my Golden Sun! 
 
 59
 
 What should you want of a waning star? 
 That drifts in its lonely orbit far 
 Away from your soft, effulgent light 
 In outer planes of Eternal night? 
 
 60
 
 Prayer 
 
 You are all that is lovely and light, 
 
 Aziza whom I adore, 
 And, waking, after the night, 
 
 I am weary with dreams of you. 
 Every nerve in my heart is tense and sore 
 
 As I rise to another morning apart from you. 
 
 I dream of your luminous eyes, 
 
 Aziza whom I adore! 
 Of the ruffled silk of your hair, 
 I dream, and the dreams are lies. 
 But I love them, knowing no more 
 
 Will ever be mine of you 
 Aziza, my life's despair. 
 
 I would burn for a thousand days, 
 
 Aziza whom I adore, 
 
 Be tortured, slain, in unheard of ways 
 
 If you pitied the pain I bore. 
 You pity! Your bright eyes, fastened on other 
 
 things, 
 Are keener to sting my soul, than scorpion stings! 
 
 6x
 
 You are all that is lovely to me, 
 
 All that is light, 
 One white rose in a Desert of weariness. 
 
 I only live in the night, 
 The night, with its fair false dreams of you, 
 
 You and your loveliness. 
 
 Give me your love for a day, 
 
 A night, an hour: 
 If the wages of sin are Death 
 I am willing to pay. 
 What is my life but a breath 
 
 Of passion burning away? 
 Away for an unplucked flower. 
 
 O Aziza whom I adore, 
 Aziza my one delight, 
 
 Only one night, I will die before day, 
 And trouble your life no more. 
 
 62
 
 The Aloe 
 
 My life was like an Aloe flower, beneath an orient 
 
 sky, 
 Your sunshine touched it for an hour ; it blossomed 
 
 but to die. 
 
 Torn up, cast out, on rubbish heaps where red 
 
 flames work their will 
 Each atom of the Aloe keeps the flower-time fra- 
 grance still. 
 
 63
 
 Memory 
 
 How I loved you in your sleep, 
 With the starlight on your hair! 
 
 The touch of your lips was sweet, 
 
 Aziza whom I adore, 
 I lay at your slender feet, 
 
 And against their soft palms pressed, 
 I fitted my face to rest. 
 As winds blow over the sea 
 
 From Citron gardens ashore, 
 Came, through your scented hair, 
 
 The breeze of the night to me. 
 
 My lips grew arid and dry, 
 
 My nerves were tense, 
 Though your beauty soothe the eye 
 
 It maddens the sense. 
 Every curve of that beauty is known to me, 
 Every tint of that delicate roseleaf skin, 
 
 And these are printed on every atom of me, 
 Burnt in on every fibre until I die. 
 
 And for this, my cm, 
 I doubt if ever, though dust I be, 
 
 64
 
 The dust will lose the desire, 
 The torment and hidden fire, 
 Of my passionate love for you. 
 
 Aziza whom I adore, 
 My dust will be full of your beauty, as is the blue 
 And infinite ocean full of the azure sky. 
 
 In the light that waxed and waned 
 Playing about your slumber in silver bars, 
 As the palm trees swung their feathery fronds 
 
 athwart the stars, 
 How quiet and young you were, 
 Pale as the Champa flowers, violet veined, 
 That, sweet and fading, lay in your loosened hair. 
 
 How sweet you were in your sleep, 
 With the starlight on your hair! 
 Your throat thrown backwards, bare, 
 And touched with circling moonbeams, silver white 
 On the couch's sombre shade. 
 
 Aziza my one delight, 
 
 When Youth's passionate pulses fade, 
 And his golden heart beats slow, 
 When across the infinite sky 
 
 1 see the roseate glow 
 
 Of my last, last sunset flare, 
 I shall send my thoughts to this night 
 And remember you as I die, 
 
 The one thing, among all the things of this earth, 
 
 found fair. 
 
 65
 
 How sweet you were in your sleep, 
 With the starlight, silver and sable, across your 
 
 hair! 
 
 66
 
 The First Lover 
 
 As o'er the vessel's side she leant, 
 
 She saw the swimmer in the sea 
 With eager eyes on her intent, 
 
 "Come down, come down and swim with me." 
 
 So weary was she of her lot, 
 
 Tired of the ship's monotony, 
 She straightway all the world forgot 
 
 Save the young swimmer in the sea. 
 
 So when the dusky, dying light 
 
 Left all the water dark and dim, 
 She softly, in the friendly night, 
 
 Slipped down the vessel's side to him. 
 
 Intent and brilliant, brightly dark, 
 
 She saw his burning, eager eyes, 
 And many a phosphorescent spark 
 
 About his shoulders fall and rise. 
 
 As through the hushed and Eastern night 
 They swam together, hand in hand, 
 
 67
 
 Or lay and laughed in sheer delight 
 Full length upon the level sand. 
 
 "Ah, soft, delusive, purple night 
 
 Whose darkness knew no vexing moon! 
 
 Ah, cruel, needless, dawning light 
 That trembled in the sky too soon!" 
 
 68
 
 Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside 
 
 The fires that burn on all the hills 
 
 Light up the landscape grey, 
 The arid desert land distills 
 
 The fervours of the day. 
 
 The clear white moon sails through the skies 
 
 And silvers all the night, 
 I see the brilliance of your eyes 
 
 And need no other light. 
 
 The death sighs of a thousand flowers 
 
 The fervent day has slain 
 Are wafted through the twilight hours, 
 
 And perfume all the plain. 
 
 My senses strain, and try to clasp 
 
 Their sweetness in the air, 
 In vain, in vain; they only grasp 
 
 The fragrance of your hair. 
 
 The plain is endless space expressed ; 
 
 Vast is the sky above, 
 I only feel, against your breast, 
 
 Infinities of love. 
 
 6 9
 
 Deserted Gipsy's Song: Hillside 
 Camp 
 
 "She is glad to receive your turquoise ring, 
 Dear and dark-eyed Lover of mine! 
 
 I, to have given you everything: 
 
 Beauty maddens the soul like Wine. 
 
 "She is proud to have held aloof her charms, 
 Slender, dark-eyed Lover of mine! 
 
 But I, of the night you lay in my arms: 
 
 Beauty maddens the sense like Wine! 
 
 "She triumphs to think that your heart is won, 
 Stately, dark-eyed Lover of mine! 
 
 I had not a thought of myself, not one: 
 
 Beauty maddens the brain like Wine! 
 
 "She will speak you softly, while skies are blue, 
 Dear, deluded Lover of mine! 
 
 I would lose both body and soul for you: 
 
 Beauty maddens the brain like Wine! 
 
 "While the ways are fair she will love you well, 
 Dear, disdainful Lover of mine! 
 70
 
 But I would have followed you down to Hell: 
 Beauty maddens the soul like Wine! 
 
 "Though you lay at her feet the days to be, 
 
 Now no longer Lover of mine! 
 You can give her naught that you gave not me: 
 
 Beauty maddened my soul like Wine! 
 
 "When the years have shown what is false or true: 
 Beauty maddens the sight like Wine! 
 
 You will understand how I cared for you, 
 First and only Lover of mine!" 
 
 71
 
 The Plains 
 
 How one loves them 
 These wide horizons ; whether Desert or Sea, — 
 
 Vague and vast and infinite; faintly clear — 
 Surely, hid in the far away, unknown "There," 
 
 Lie the things so longed for and found not, 
 
 found not, Here. 
 
 Only where some passionate, level land 
 
 Stretches itself in reaches of golden sand, 
 Only where the sea line is joined to the sky-line, 
 
 clear, 
 Beyond the curve of ripple or white 
 
 foamed crest, — 
 Shall the weary eyes 
 Distressed by the broken skies, — 
 Broken by Minaret, mountain, or 
 
 towering tree, — 
 Shall the weary eyes be assuaged, — be 
 
 assuaged, — and rest 
 
 7 2
 
 "Lost Delight" 
 
 After the Hazara War 
 
 I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms, 
 
 Where we two lay together in the spring, 
 
 And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting, 
 This year, as last, the water-courses sing. 
 
 That was another spring, and other flowers, 
 
 Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree, 
 
 The land rejoiced in other running water, 
 
 And I rejoiced, because you were with me. 
 
 You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded, 
 Your red lips like a living, laughing rose, 
 
 Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender 
 Now lost to me. Gone whither no man 
 
 knows. 
 
 You lay beside me singing in the sunshine; 
 
 The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck, 
 Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond 
 
 blossoms, 
 
 On which the sun could find no flaw or fleck. 
 
 73
 
 I lie alone, beneath the Almond flowers, 
 
 I hated them to touch you as they fell. 
 
 And now, who killed you? worse, Ah, worse, who 
 
 loves you? 
 (My soul is burning as men burn in Hell.) 
 
 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, 
 
 74
 
 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! 
 
 75
 
 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 live over, I too depart 
 
 To the infinite night where perhaps you are. 
 
 7 6
 
 Oh, are you anywhere? Loved so well! 
 1 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. 
 
 77
 
 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. 
 
 78
 
 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 
 
 79
 
 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, 
 
 80
 
 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. 
 
 81
 
 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. 
 
 Stange 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 
 
 82
 
 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. 
 
 83
 
 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, 
 
 84
 
 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 v 
 
 Against your heart, so innocent and tender, 
 A little Love and some Forgetfulness. 
 
 85
 
 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 
 
 86
 
 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. 
 
 87
 
 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. 
 
 88
 
 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." 
 
 89
 
 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, 
 
 90
 
 With ripples for first mus'ic 
 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. 
 
 91
 
 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, 
 92
 
 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 w y orld 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 pos- 
 sessed 
 For possession feeds the fire. 
 
 "Oh, for the life of the bright hued things 
 Whose marriage and death are one, 
 
 93
 
 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. 
 
 94
 
 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! 
 
 95
 
 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! 
 
 96
 
 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! 
 
 97
 
 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. 
 9 8
 
 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 mc 
 
 through the night!" 
 
 99
 
 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! 
 
 IOO
 
 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 opal- 
 escence, 
 IOI
 
 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, 
 
 I02
 
 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. 
 
 103
 
 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. 
 104
 
 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. 
 
 IOS
 
 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; 
 
 106
 
 (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 / 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,- 
 
 107
 
 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. 
 
 108
 
 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 1 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, 
 
 109
 
 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! 
 
 HO
 
 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, 
 
 I I I
 
 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! 
 
 112
 
 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. 
 
 113
 
 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. 
 
 114
 
 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! 
 
 115
 
 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 1 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!" 
 
 116
 
 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! 
 
 117
 
 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 feel 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. 
 
 118
 
 They are together ; Why are we 
 So hopelessly, so far apart? 
 Oh, 1 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 
 
 119
 
 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! 
 
 120
 
 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. 
 121
 
 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! 
 122
 
 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. 
 
 123
 
 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. 
 
 124
 
 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 
 
 125
 
 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! 
 
 126
 
 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. 
 127
 
 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. 
 
 128
 
 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 
 129
 
 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 ! 
 
 130
 
 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! 
 
 131
 
 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. 
 
 132
 
 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. 
 
 133
 
 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. 
 
 134
 
 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, 
 
 135
 
 "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 
 
 136
 
 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. 
 
 137
 
 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 Mis- 
 tress, 
 For this indeed may rust, and that prove faithless, 
 But, till my limbs are dust, I have my Fancies. 
 
 138
 
 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. 
 
 139
 
 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 
 
 Come, for I wait for you, 
 Night is too late for you, 
 
 Come, while the twilight 
 
 Flight of the 
 Hours. 
 
 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. 
 
 140
 
 Camp Follower's Song, 
 Gonial 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, 
 141
 
 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! 
 142
 
 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. 
 
 J 43
 
 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. 
 
 144
 
 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. 
 
 Yell oiv 
 
 Gold am I, and for me, ever men curse and pray, 
 Selling their souls and each other, by night and 
 
 day. 
 
 145
 
 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. 
 
 146
 
 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. 
 
 I felt the secret hope at my heart 
 
 Turned suddenly to the living joy, 
 
 And knew that your life and mine had part 
 As golden grains in a brass alloy. 
 
 And learning thus, that your child was mine, 
 Thrilled by the sense of its stirring life, 
 
 I held myself as a sacred shrine 
 
 Afar from pleasure, and pain, and strife, 
 
 H7
 
 That all unworthy I might not be 
 
 Of that you had deigned to cause to dwell 
 
 Hidden away in the heart of me, 
 
 As white pearls hide in a dusky shell. 
 
 Do you remember, when first you laid 
 
 Your lips on mine, that enchanted night? 
 
 My eyes were timid, my lips afraid, 
 
 You seemed so slender and strangely white. 
 
 I always tremble ; the moments flew 
 
 Swiftly to dawn that took you away, 
 
 But this is a small and lovely you 
 
 Content to rest in my arms all day. 
 
 Oh, since you have sought me, Lord, for this, 
 And given your only child to me, 
 
 My life devoted to yours and his, 
 
 Whilst I am living, will always be. 
 
 And after death, through the long To Be, 
 
 (Which, I think, must surely keep love's laws,) 
 
 I, should you chance to have need of me, 
 Am ever and always, only yours. 
 
 148
 
 On the City Wall 
 
 Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam, 
 The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes 
 
 that dream. 
 
 The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from 
 
 the West, 
 The last alight with action, the first so full of rest. 
 
 Brown, that seem to hold the Past; its magic 
 
 mystery, 
 Blue, that catch the early light, of ages yet to be. 
 
 Meet and fall and meet again, then linger, look, 
 
 and smile, 
 Time and distance all forgotten, for a little while. 
 
 Happy on the city wall, in the warm spring weather, 
 All the force of Nature's laws, drawing them to- 
 gether. 
 
 East and West so gaily blending, for a little space, 
 All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' 
 
 Enchanted place! 
 149
 
 One rides down the dusty road, one watches from 
 
 the wall, 
 Azure eyes would fain return, and Amber eyes 
 
 recall ; 
 
 Would fain be on the ramparts, and resting heart to 
 
 heart, 
 But time o' love is overpast, East and West must 
 
 part. 
 
 Blue eyes so clear and brilliant! Brown eyes so 
 
 dark and deep ! 
 Those are dim, and ride away, these cry themselves 
 
 to sleep. 
 
 "Oh, since Love is all so short, the sob so near the 
 
 smile, 
 Blue eyes that always conquer us, is it worth your 
 
 while f 
 
 i5°
 
 "Love Lightly" 
 
 There were Roses in the hedges, and Sunshine in 
 
 the sky, 
 
 Red Lilies in the sedges, where the water rippled by, 
 
 A thousand Bulbuls singing, oh, how jubilant they 
 
 were, 
 
 And a thousand flowers flinging their sweetness on 
 
 the air. 
 
 But you, who sat beside me, had a shadow in your 
 
 eyes, 
 Their sadness seemed to chide me, when I gave you 
 
 scant replies; 
 You asked "Did I remember?" and "When had I 
 
 ceased to care?" 
 In vain you fanned the ember, for the love flame 
 
 was not there. 
 
 "And so, since you are tired of me, you ask me to 
 
 forget, 
 What is the use of caring, now that you no longer 
 
 care? 
 When Love is dead his Memory can only bring 
 
 regret 
 
 151
 
 But how can I forget you with the flowers in your 
 
 hair?" 
 
 What use the scented Roses, or the azure of the sky ? 
 They are sweet when Love reposes, but then he had 
 
 to die. 
 What could I do in leaving you, hut ask you to 
 
 forget, — 
 I suffered, too, in grieving you ; I all but loved you 
 
 yet. 
 
 But half love is a treason, that no lover can forgive, 
 I had loved you for a season, I had no more to give. 
 You saw my passion faltered, for I could but let 
 
 you see, 
 And it was not I that altered, but Fate that altered 
 
 me. 
 
 And so, since I am tired of love, I ask you to forget, 
 What is the use you caring, now that I no longer 
 
 care? 
 When Love is dead, his Memory can only bring 
 
 regret ; 
 Forget me, oh, forget me, and my flower-scented 
 
 hair! 
 
 152
 
 No Rival Like the Past 
 
 As those who eat a Luscious Fruit, sunbaked, 
 Full of sweet juice, with zest, until they find 
 
 It finished, and their appetite unslaked, 
 
 And so return and eat the pared-off rind ; — 
 
 We, who in Youth, set white and careless teeth 
 In the Ripe Fruits of Pleasure while they last, 
 
 Later, creep back to gnaw the cast-off sheath, 
 And find there is no Rival like the Past. 
 
 153
 
 Verse by Taj Mahomed 
 
 When first I loved, I gave my very soul 
 
 Utterly unreserved to Love's control, 
 
 But Love deceived me, wrenched my youth away 
 
 And made the gold of life for ever grey. 
 
 Long I lived lonely, yet I tried in vain 
 
 With any other Joy to stifle pain ; 
 
 There is no other joy, I learned to know, 
 
 And so returned to Love, as long ago. 
 
 Yet I, this little while ere I go hence, 
 
 Love very lightly now, in self-defence. 
 
 154
 
 Lines by Taj Mahomed 
 
 This passion is but an ember 
 Of a Sun, of a Fire, long set ; 
 
 I could not live and remember, 
 And so I love and forget. 
 
 You say, and the tone is fretful, 
 That my mourning days were few, 
 
 You call me over forgetful — 
 My God, if you only knew! 
 
 155
 
 There is no Breeze to Cool 
 the Heat of Love 
 
 The listless Palm-trees catch the breeze above 
 The pile-built huts that edge the salt Lagoon, 
 
 There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love, 
 No wind from land or sea, at night or noon. 
 
 Perfumed and robed I wait, my Lord, for you, 
 And my heart waits alert, with strained delight, 
 
 My flowers are loath to close, as though they knew 
 That you will come to me before the night. 
 
 In the Verandah all the lights are lit, 
 
 And softly veiled in rose to please your eyes, 
 
 Between the pillars flying foxes flit, 
 Their wings transparent on the lilac skies. 
 
 Come soon, my Lord, come soon, I almost fear 
 My heart may fail me in this keen suspense, 
 
 Break with delight, at last, to know you near. 
 Pleasure is one with Pain, if too intense. 
 
 156
 
 I envy these: the steps that you will tread, 
 The jasmin that will touch you by its leaves, 
 
 When, in your slender height, you stoop your head 
 At the low door beneath the palm-thatched eaves. 
 
 For though you utterly belong to me, 
 
 And love has done his utmost 'twixt us twain, 
 Your slightest, careless touch yet seems to be 
 
 That keen delight so much akin to pain. 
 
 The night breeze blows across the still Lagoon, 
 And stirs the Palm-trees till they wave above 
 
 Our pile-built huts; Oh, come, my Lord, come soon, 
 There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love. 
 
 Every time you give yourself to me, 
 
 The gift seems greater, and yourself more fair, 
 This slight-built, palm-thatched hut has come to be 
 
 A temple, since, my Lord, you visit there. 
 
 And as the water, gurgling softly, goes 
 Among the piles beneath the slender floor; 
 
 I hear it murmur, as it seaward flows, 
 Of the great Wonder seen upon the shore. 
 
 The Miracle, that you should come to me, 
 
 Whom the whole world, seeing, can but desire, 
 
 It is as though some White Star stooped to be 
 The messmate of our little cooking fire. 
 
 157
 
 Leaving the Glory of his Purple Skies, 
 
 And the White Friendship of the Crescent Moon, 
 And yet; — I look into your brilliant eyes, 
 
 And find content ; Oh, come, my Lord, come soon. 
 
 Perfumed and robed I wait for you, I wait, 
 
 The flowers that please you wreathed about my 
 
 hair, 
 
 And this poor face set forth in jewelled state, 
 So more than proud since you have found it fair. 
 
 My lute is ready, and the fragrant drink 
 Your lips may honour, how it will rejoice 
 
 Losing its life in yours! the lute I think 
 
 But wastes the time when I might hear your voice. 
 
 But you desired it, therefore I obey. 
 
 Your slightest, as your utmost, wish or will, 
 Whether it please you to caress or slay, 
 
 It would please me to give obedience still. 
 
 I would delight to die beneath your kiss; 
 
 I envy that young maiden who was slain, 
 So her warm blood, flowing beneath the kiss, 
 
 Might ease the wounded Sultan of his pain — ■ 
 
 If she loved him as I love you, my Lord. 
 
 There is no pleasure on the earth so sweet 
 As is the pain endured for one adored; 
 
 If I lay crushed beneath your slender feet 
 
 I 5 8'
 
 I should be happy! Ah, come soon, come soon, 
 See how the stars grow large and white above, 
 
 The land breeze blows across the salt Lagoon, 
 There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love. 
 
 159
 
 Malay Song 
 
 The Stars await, serene and white, 
 
 The unarisen moon ; 
 Oh, come and stay with me to-night, 
 
 Beside the salt Lagoon ! 
 
 My hut is small, but as you lie, 
 
 You see the lighted shore, 
 And hear the rippling water sigh 
 
 Beneath the pile-raised floor. 
 
 No gift have I of jewels or flowers, 
 
 My room is poor and bare: 
 But all the silver sea is ours, 
 
 And all the scented air 
 
 Blown from the mainland, where there grows 
 Th' "Intriguer of the Night," 
 
 The flower that you have named Tube rose, 
 Sweet scented, slim, and white. 
 
 The flower that, when the air is still 
 
 And no land breezes blow, 
 From its pale petals can distil 
 
 A phosphorescent glow. 
 
 I 60
 
 I see your ship at anchor ride ; 
 
 Her "captive lightning" shine. 
 Before she takes to-morrow's tide, 
 
 Let this one night be mine! 
 
 Though in the language of your land 
 My words are poor and few, 
 
 Oh, read my eyes, and understand, 
 I give my youth to you ! 
 
 161
 
 The Temple Dancing Girl 
 
 You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet, 
 Falling as softly on the careless street 
 
 As the wind-loosened petals of a flower, 
 
 Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour. 
 
 And all the Temple's little links and laws 
 Will not for long protect your loveliness. 
 
 I have a stronger force to aid my cause, 
 Nature's great Law, to love and to possess! 
 
 Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay 
 Wakeful, desiring what I might not see, 
 
 I knew (it helped those hours, from dusk to day), 
 In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me. 
 
 You will consent, through all my veins like wine 
 This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above, 
 
 Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine 
 Dim in a silent ecstasy of love. 
 
 The clustered softness of your waving hair, 
 That curious paleness which enchants me so, 
 
 And all your delicate strength and youthful air, 
 Destiny will compel you to bestow! 
 
 162
 
 Refuse, withdraw, and hesitate awhile, 
 
 Your young reluctance does but fan the flame; 
 
 My partner, Love, waits, with a tender smile, 
 Who play against him play a losing game. 
 
 I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this, 
 The subtlest, most resistless, force we know 
 
 Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss: 
 The genius of the race will have it so ! 
 
 Yet, make it not too long, nor too intense 
 
 My thirst; lest I should break beneath the strain, 
 
 And the worn nerves, and over-wearied sense, 
 Enjoy not what they spent themselves to gain. 
 
 Lest, in the hour when you consent to share 
 That human passion Beauty makes divine, 
 
 I, over worn, should find you over fair, 
 Lest I should die before I make you mine. 
 
 You will consent, those slim, reluctant feet, 
 Falling as lightly on the careless street 
 
 As the white petals of a wind-worn flower, 
 Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour. 
 
 163
 
 Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah 
 
 On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, 
 
 alone, we lie, 
 With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon 
 
 in the sky: 
 A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets 
 
 round your feet, 
 Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never 
 
 our souls may meet. 
 
 For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name 
 
 I have never heard, 
 To carry a thought between us two, we have not a 
 
 single word. 
 And yet what matter we do not speak, when the 
 
 ardent eyes have spoken. 
 The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence 
 
 is unbroken. 
 
 As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured 
 
 Damask Rose, 
 Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild 
 
 Anemone grows; 
 164
 
 So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh 
 
 and free 
 As this light love in the open wind and salt of the 
 
 outer sea. 
 
 So sweet you are, with your tinted cheeks and your 
 
 small caressive hands, 
 What if I carried you home with me, where our 
 
 Golden Temple stands? 
 Yet, this were folly indeed; to bind, in fetters of 
 
 permanence, 
 A passing dream whose enchantment charms be- 
 cause of its trancience. 
 
 Life is ever a slave to Time; we have but an hour 
 
 to rest, 
 Her steam is up and her lighters leave, the vessel 
 
 that takes me west; 
 And never again we two shall meet, as we chance 
 
 to meet to-night, 
 On the Junk, whose painted eyes gaze forth, in 
 
 desolate want of sight. 
 
 And what is love at its best, but this? Conceived 
 
 by a passing glance, 
 Nursed and reared in a transient mood, on a drift- 
 ing Sea of Chance. 
 For rudderless craft are all our loves, among the 
 
 rocks and the shoals, 
 Well we may know one another's speech, but never 
 
 each other's souls. 
 165
 
 Give here your lips and kiss me again, we have but 
 
 a moment more, 
 Before we set the sail to the mast, before we loosen 
 
 the oar. 
 Good-bye to you, and my thanks to you, for the 
 
 rest you let me share, 
 While this night drifted away to the Past, to join 
 
 the Nights that Were. 
 
 166
 
 Starlight 
 
 O beautiful Stars, when you see me go 
 Hither and thither, in search of love, 
 
 Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow 
 Serene and fixed in the blue above? 
 
 O Stars, so golden, it is not so. 
 
 But there is a garden I dare not see, 
 There is a place where I fear to go, 
 
 Since the charm and glory of life to me 
 The brown earth covered there, long ago. 
 
 O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know. 
 
 Hither and thither I wandering go, 
 With aimless haste and wearying fret; 
 
 In a search for pleasure and love? Not so, 
 Seeking desperately to forget. 
 
 You see so many, O Stars, you know. 
 
 167
 
 Sampan Song 
 
 A little breeze blew over the sea, 
 
 And it came from far away, 
 Across the fields of millet and rice, 
 All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice, 
 It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice, 
 
 As upon the deck he lay. 
 
 It said, "Oh, idle upon the sea, 
 
 Awake and with sleep have done, 
 Haul up the widest sail of the prow, 
 And come with me to the rice fields now, 
 She longs, oh, how can I tell you how, 
 To show you your first-born son!" 
 
 168
 
 Song of the Devoted Slave 
 
 There is one God: Mahomed his Prophet. 
 
 Had I his power 
 I would take the topmost peaks of the snow-clad 
 
 Himalayas, 
 And would range them around your dwelling, dur- 
 ing the heats of summer, 
 To cool the airs that fan your serene and delicate 
 
 presence, 
 Had I the power. 
 
 Your courtyard should ever be filled with the fleet- 
 est of camels 
 Laden with inlaid armour, jewels and trappings for 
 
 horses, 
 Ripe dates from Egypt, and spices and musk from 
 
 Arabia. 
 And the sacred waters of Zem-Zem well, trans- 
 ported thither, 
 Should bubble and flow in your chamber, to bathe 
 
 the delicate 
 Slender and wayworn feet of my Lord, returning 
 
 from travel, 
 Had I the power. 
 169
 
 Fine woven silk, from the further East, should con- 
 ceal your beauty, 
 Clinging around you in amorous folds; caressive, 
 
 silken, 
 Beautiful long-lashed, sweet-voiced Persian boys 
 
 should, kneeling, serve you, 
 And the floor beneath your sandalled feet should be 
 
 smooth and golden, 
 Had I the power. 
 
 And if ever your clear and stately thoughts should 
 
 turn to women, 
 Kings' daughters, maidens, should be appointed to 
 
 your caresses, 
 That the youth and the strength of my Lord might 
 
 never be wasted 
 In light or sterile love; but enrich the world with 
 
 his children. 
 Had I the power. 
 
 Whilst I should sit in the outer court of the Water 
 
 Palace 
 To await the time when you went forth, for Pleas- 
 ure or Warfare, 
 Descending the stairs rose crowned, or armed and 
 
 arrayed in purple, — 
 To mark the place where your steps have fallen, 
 
 and kiss the footprints, 
 Had I the power. 
 170
 
 The Singer 
 
 The singer only sang the Joy of Life, 
 For all too well, alas! the singer knew 
 
 How hard the daily toil, how keen the strife, 
 How salt the falling tear; the joys how few. 
 
 He who thinks hard soon finds it hard to live, 
 Learning the Secret Bitterness of Things: 
 
 So, leaving thought, the singer strove to give 
 A level lightness to his lyric strings. 
 
 He only sang of Love; its joy and pain, 
 But each man in his early season loves; 
 
 Each finds the old, lost Paradise again, 
 
 Unfolding leaves, and roses, nesting doves. 
 
 And though that sunlit time flies all too fleetly, 
 Delightful Days that dance away too soon ! 
 
 Its early morning freshness lingers sweetly 
 Throughout life's grey and tedious afternoon. 
 
 And he, whose dreams enshrine her tender eye , 
 And she, whose senses wait his waking hand, 
 
 Impatient youth, that tired but sleepless lies, 
 Will read perhaps, and reading, understand. 
 
 171
 
 Oh, roseate lips he would have loved to kiss, 
 Oh, eager lovers that he never knew! 
 
 What should you know of him, or words of his ?- 
 But all the songs he sang were sung for you! 
 
 172
 
 Malaria 
 
 He lurks among the reeds, beside the marsh, 
 
 Red oleanders twisted in His hair, 
 His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh, 
 
 Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare. 
 
 The green and stagnant waters lick His feet, 
 And from their filmy, iridescent scum 
 
 Clouds of mosquitoes, gauzy in the heat, 
 Rise with His gifts: Death and Delirium. 
 
 His messengers: They bear the deadly taint 
 On spangled wings aloft and far away, 
 
 Making thin music, strident and yet faint, 
 From golden eve to silver break of day. 
 
 The baffled sleeper hears th' incessant whine 
 Through his tormented dreams, and finds no rest. 
 
 The thirsty insects use his blood for wine, 
 Probe his blue veins and pasture on his breast. 
 
 While far away He in the marshes lies, 
 
 Staining the stagnant water with His breath, 
 
 An endless hunger burning in His eyes, 
 A famine unassuaged, whose food is Death. 
 
 173
 
 He hides among the ghostly mists that float 
 Over the water, weird and white and chill, 
 
 And peasants, passing in their laden boat, 
 Shiver and feel a sense of coming ill. 
 
 A thousand burn and die; He takes no heed, 
 Their bones, unburied, strewn upon the plain, 
 
 Only increase the frenzy of His greed 
 
 To add more victims to th' already slain. 
 
 He loves the haggard frame, the shattered mind, 
 Gloats with delight upon the glazing eye, 
 
 Vet, in one thing, His cruelty is kind, 
 
 He sends them lovely dreams before they die; 
 
 Dreams that bestow on them their heart's desire, 
 Visions that find them mad, and leave them blest, 
 
 To sink, forgetful of the fever's fire, 
 Softly, as in a lover's arms, to rest. 
 
 174
 
 Fancy 
 
 Far in the Further East the skilful craftsman 
 Fashioned this fancy for the West's delight. 
 
 This rose and azure Dragon, crouching softly 
 Upon the satin skin, close-grained and white. 
 
 And you lay silent, while his slender needles 
 Pricked the intricate pattern on your arm, 
 
 Combining deftly Cruelty and Beauty, 
 
 That subtle union, whose child is charm. 
 
 Charm irresistible: the lovely something 
 
 We follow in our dreams, but may not reach. 
 
 The unattainable Divine Enchantment, 
 
 Hinted in music, never heard in speech. 
 
 This from the blue design exhales towards me, 
 As incense rises from the Homes of Prayer, 
 
 While the unfettered eyes, allured and rested, 
 Urge the forbidden lips to stoop and share; 
 
 T7<
 
 Share in the sweetness of the rose and azure 
 
 Traced in the Dragon's form upon the white 
 
 Curve of the arm. Ah, curb thyself, my fancy, 
 Where would'st thou drift in this enchanted 
 
 flight? 
 
 176
 
 Feroza 
 
 The evening sky was as green as Jade, 
 
 As Emerald turf by Lotus lake, 
 Behind the Kafila far she strayed, 
 
 (The Pearls are lost if the Necklace break!) 
 
 A lingering freshness touched the air 
 
 From palm-trees, clustered around a Spring, 
 The great, grim Desert lay vast and bare, 
 
 But Youth is ever a careless thing. 
 
 The Raiders threw her upon the sand, 
 Men of the Wilderness know no laws, 
 
 They tore the Amethysts off her hand, 
 
 And rent the folds of her veiling gauze. 
 
 They struck the lips that they might have kiased, 
 Pitiless they to her pain and fear, 
 
 And wrenched the gold from her broken wrist, 
 No use to cry; there were none to hear. 
 
 Her scarlet mouth and her onyx eyes, 
 Her braided hair in its silken sheen, 
 
 Were surely meet for a Lover's prize, 
 
 But Fate dissented, and stepped between. 
 177
 
 Across the Zenith the vultures fly, 
 Cruel of beak and heavy of wing. 
 
 Thus it was written that she should die. 
 Inshallah! Death is a transient thing. 
 
 I 7 8
 
 This Month the Almonds 
 Bloom at Kandahar 
 
 I hate this City, seated on the Plain, 
 The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar, 
 
 Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain, 
 
 This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar. 
 
 The Almond-trees, that sheltered my Delight, 
 Screening my happiness as evening fell. 
 
 It was well worth — that most Enchanted Night — 
 This life in torment, and the next in Hell! 
 
 People are kind to me; one More than Kind, 
 Her lashes lie like fans upon her cheek, 
 
 But kindness is a burden on my mind, 
 And it is weariness to hear her speak. 
 
 For though that Kaffir's bullet holds me here, 
 My thoughts are ever free, and wander far, 
 
 To where the Lilac Hills rise, soft and clear, 
 Beyond the Almond Groves of Kandahar. 
 
 He followed me to Sibi, to the Fair, 
 
 The Horse-fair, where he shot me weeks ago, 
 
 179
 
 But since they fettered him I have no care 
 That my returning steps to health are slow. 
 
 They will not loose him till they know my fate, 
 And I rest here till I am strong to slay, 
 
 Meantime, my Heart's Delight may safely wait 
 Among the Almond blossoms, sweet as they. 
 
 That cursed Kaffir! Well, he won by day, 
 But I won, what I so desired, by night, 
 
 My arms held what his lack till Judgment Day! 
 Also, the game is not yet over — quite! 
 
 Wait, Amir AH, wait till I come forth 
 
 To kill, before the Almond-trees are green, 
 
 To raze thy very Memory from the North, 
 So that thou art not, and thou hast not been! 
 
 Aha ! Friend Amir Ali ! it is Duty 
 
 To rid the World from Shiah dogs like thee, 
 They are but ill-placed moles on Islam's beauty, 
 
 Such as the Faithful cannot calmly see ! 
 
 Also thy bullet hurts me not a little, 
 
 Thy Shiah blood might serve to salve the ill. 
 
 Maybe some Afghan Promises are brittle ; 
 Never a Promise to oneself, to kill! 
 
 Now I grow stronger, I have days of leisure 
 To shape my coming Vengeance as I lie, 
 
 180
 
 And, undisturbed by call of War or Pleasure, 
 Can dream of many ways a man may die. 
 
 I shall not torture thee, thy friends might rally, 
 Some Fate assist thee and prove false to me; 
 
 Oh ! shouldst thou now escape me, Amir Ali, 
 This would torment me through Eternity! 
 
 Aye, Shuffa-Jan, I will be quiet indeed, 
 
 Give here the Hakim's powder if thou wilt, 
 
 And thou mayst sit, for I perceive thy need, 
 And rest thy soft-haired head upon my quilt. 
 
 Thy gentle love will not disturb a mind 
 That loves and hates beneath a fiercer Star. 
 
 Also, thou know'st, my Heart is left behind, 
 Among the Almond-trees of Kandahar! 
 
 THE END 
 
 181
 
 

 
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