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diff --git a/old/inlly10.txt b/old/inlly10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ba9368 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/inlly10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4372 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of India's Love Lyrics, by Laurence Hope et al + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: India's Love Lyrics + +Author: Laurence Hope et al + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8197] +[This file was first posted on July 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Gordon Keener + + + +Editorial note: Laurence Hope was the pen name of Adela Florence Cory + Nicolson. Born in 1865, she was educated in England. + At age 16 she joined her father in India, where she + spent most of her adult life. In 1889 she married Col. + Malcolm H. Nicolson, a man twice her age. She committed + suicide two months after his death in 1904. + + + + + + + +INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS + +by LAURENCE HOPE + + + + + + + +"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, +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. + + + + +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;-- + 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. + 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 +And then to rest. To ensweeten 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 beauty 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." + + + + +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. + + + + +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, +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 +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. +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. + + + + +Valgovind's 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! + + + + +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 chillness of your breast. + + + + +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, +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?" + +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! + + + + +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 dowacast lashes, feeling your beauty, +I shiver and burn with pleasure beneath my veil. + +_Younger Sisters_ +We throw sweet perfume upon her head, +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 me. +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! + +_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! + + + + +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 useless passion. + +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. + + + + +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, +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. + + + + +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 +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. + + + + +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, wandering 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? + +"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, +The 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. + + + + +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! + + + + +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 +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 +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, +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!" + + + + +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. + +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. + + + + +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. + + + + +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! + + + + +"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, + 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 + +Ah 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. + + + + +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. + +She lay and laughed and listened beside the water's edge. +The glancing rirer 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, beneath 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. + +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. + + + + +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! + + + + +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, +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 +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 + 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! + + + + +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. + +"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 + 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 + 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. + + + + +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, +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 assembling 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 +While I try to speak but know not what I 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! + + + + +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! + +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? + + + + +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! + +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. + + + + +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 fragrance still. + + + + +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 sin, +I doubt if ever, though dust I be, +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. +O Aziza my one delight, +When Youth's passionate pulses fade, +And his golden heart beats slow, +When across the infinite sky +I 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. + +How sweet you were in your sleep, +With the starlight, silver and sable, across your hair! + + + + +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, +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!" + + + + +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. + + + + +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! +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!" + + + + +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. + + + + +"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. + +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, +What fate was yours? (Ah, dear God, grant me patience, + My heart is burnt, is burnt, with fire and pain.) + +Oh, lost Delight! my heart is almost breaking, + My sword is broken and my feet are sore, +The people look at me and say in passing, + "He will not leave the village any more." + +For as the evening falls, the fever rises, + With frantic thoughts careering through the brain, +Wild thoughts of you. (Ah, dear God, grant me patience, + My soul is hurt beyond all men call pain.) + +I lie alone, beneath the Almond blossoms, + And see the white snow melting on the hills +Till Khorassan is gay with water-courses, + Glad with the tinkling sound of running rills, + +And well I know that when the fragile petals + Fall softly, ere the first green leaves appear, +(Ah, for these last few days, God, grant me patience,) + Since Delight is not, I shall not be, here! + + + + +Unforgotten + +Do you ever think of me? you who died + Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled, +With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled + Lying alone, aside, +Do you ever think of me, left in the light, +From the endless calm of your dawnless night? + +I am faithful always: I do not say + That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old +To lesser kisses are always cold; + Had you wished for this in its narrow sense + Our love perhaps had been less intense; +But as we held faithfulness, you and I, + I am faithful always, as you who lie, + Asleep for ever, beneath the grass, + While the days and nights and the seasons pass,-- + Pass away. + +I keep your memory near my heart, + My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star, +Till long live over, I too depart + To the infinite night where perhaps you are. + +Oh, are you anywhere? Loved so well! +I would rather know you alive in Hell +Than think your beauty is nothing now, +With its deep dark eyes and tranquil brow +Where the hair fell softly. Can this be true +That nothing, nowhere, exists of you? +Nothing, nowhere, oh, loved so well + I have _never_ forgotten. + Do you still keep +Thoughts of me through your dreamless sleep? + +Oh, gone from me! lost in Eternal Night, + Lost Star of light, +Risen splendidly, set so soon, + Through the weariness of life's afternoon + I dream of your memory yet. +My loved and lost, whom I could not save, +My youth went down with you to the grave, +Though other planets and stars may rise, +I dream of your soft and sorrowful eyes + And I cannot forget. + + + + +Song of Faiz Ulla + +Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather, +Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent together +We, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content. + +Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress, +We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wine +Lessening the fulness of delight,-- + Some quivering note of human pain, +Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night, + +Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hours +We spent among the Jasmin flowers. + + + + +Story of Lilavanti + +They lay the slender body down + With all its wealth of wetted hair, +Only a daughter of the town, + But very young and slight and fair. + +The eyes, whose light one cannot see, + Are sombre doubtless, like the tresses, +The mouth's soft curvings seem to be + A roseate series of caresses. + +And where the skin has all but dried + (The air is sultry in the room) +Upon her breast and either side, + It shows a soft and amber bloom. + +By women here, who knew her life, + A leper husband, I am told, +Took all this loveliness to wife + When it was barely ten years old. + +And when the child in shocked dismay + Fled from the hated husband's care +He caught and tied her, so they say, + Down to his bedside by her hair. + +To some low quarter of the town, + Escaped a second time, she flew; +Her beauty brought her great renown + And many lovers here she knew, + +When, as the mystic Eastern night + With purple shadow filled the air, +Behind her window framed in light, + She sat with jasmin in her hair. + +At last she loved a youth, who chose + To keep this wild flower for his own, +He in his garden set his rose + Where it might bloom for him alone. + +Cholera came; her lover died, + Want drove her to the streets again, +And women found her there, who tried + To turn her beauty into gain. + +But she who in those garden ways + Had learnt of Love, would now no more +Be bartered in the market place + For silver, as in days before. + +That former life she strove to change; + She sold the silver off her arms, +While all the world grew cold and strange + To broken health and fading charms. + +Till, finding lovers, but no friend, + Nor any place to rest or hide, +She grew despairing at the end, + Slipped softly down a well and died. + +And yet, how short, when all is said, + This little life of love and tears! +Her age, they say, beside her bed, + To-day is only fifteen years. + + + + +The Garden by the Bridge + +The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary, + The tigers rend alive their quivering prey +In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary, + Too gorged with living food to fly away. + +All night the hungry jackals howl together + Over the carrion in the river bed, +Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather + Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed. + +I hear from yonder Temple in the distance + Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled, +Reiterated with a sad insistence + Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child. + +Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper, + Are consummated in the river bed; +Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper + To burn the bodies of their cholera dead. + +But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them + Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings; +Poor beasts, and poorer men. Nay, who shall blame them? + Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things. + +The world is horrible and I am lonely, + Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom +And find forgetfulness, remembering only + Your face beside me in the scented gloom. + +Nay, do not shrink! I am not here for passion, + I crave no love, only a little rest, +Although I would my face lay, lover's fashion, + Against the tender coolness of your breast. + +I am so weary of the Curse of Living + The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears. +Surely, if life were any God's free giving, + He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears. + +Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying, + Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past. +Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing, + But know that death _must_ win the game at last. + +As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter, + The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings,-- +As the pink Lotus floats on azure water, + Innocent of the mud from whence it springs. + +You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow, + The fear and pain set close around your way, +Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow, + Living with joy each hour of glad to-day. + +I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet, + How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?) +So calmly careless of the rush and riot + That rages round is seething everywhere. + +You do not understand. You think your beauty + Does but inflame my senses to desire, +Till all you hold as loyalty and duty, + Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire. + +You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving + As though the whole world's sorrow eat my heart, +I come to gaze upon your face believing + Its beauty is as ointment to the smart. + +Lie still and let me in my desolation + Caress the soft loose hair a moment's span. +Since Loveliness is Life's one Consolation, + And love the only Lethe left to man. + +Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower, + Beside the river where the fireflies pass, +One little dusky, all consoling hour + Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass + +Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender, + Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress, +Against your heart, so innocent and tender, + A little Love and some Forgetfulness. + + + + +Fate Knows no Tears + +Just as the dawn of Love was breaking + Across the weary world of grey, +Just as my life once more was waking + As roses waken late in May, +Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making, + Stepped in and carried you away. + +Memories have I none in keeping + Of times I held you near my heart, +Of dreams when we were near to weeping + That dawn should bid us rise and part; +Never, alas, I saw you sleeping + With soft closed eyes and lips apart, + +Breathing my name still through your dreaming.-- + Ah! had you stayed, such things had been! +But Fate, unheeding human scheming, + Serenely reckless came between-- +Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleaming + Unseared by all the sorrow seen. + +Ah! well-beloved, I never told you, + I did not show in speech or song, +How at the end I longed to fold you + Close in my arms; so fierce and strong +The longing grew to have and hold you, + You, and you only, all life long. + +They who know nothing call me fickle, + Keen to pursue and loth to keep. +Ah, could they see these tears that trickle + From eyes erstwhile too proud to weep. +Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle, + While pain and sorrow stand and reap! + +Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lie + The hopes that rose-like round me grew, +The lights are low, and more than lonely + This life I lead apart from you. +Come back, come back! I want you only, + And you who loved me never knew. + +You loved me, pleaded for compassion + On all the pain I would not share; +And I in weary, halting fashion + Was loth to listen, long to care; +But now, dear God! I faint with passion + For your far eyes and distant hair. + +Yes, I am faint with love, and broken + With sleepless nights and empty days; +I want your soft words fiercely spoken, + Your tender looks and wayward ways-- +Want that strange smile that gave me token + Of many things that no man says. + +Cold was I, weary, slow to waken + Till, startled by your ardent eyes, +I felt the soul within me shaken + And long-forgotten senses rise; +But in that moment you were taken, + And thus we lost our Paradise! + +Farewell, we may not now recover + That golden "Then" misspent, passed by, +We shall not meet as loved and lover + Here, or hereafter, you and I. +My time for loving you is over, + Love has no future, but to die. + +And thus we part, with no believing + In any chance of future years. +We have no idle self-deceiving, + No half-consoling hopes and fears; +We know the Gods grant no retrieving + A wasted chance. Fate knows no tears. + + + + +Verses: Faiz Ulla + +Just in the hush before dawn +A little wistful wind is born. +A little chilly errant breeze, +That thrills the grasses, stirs the trees. +And, as it wanders on its way, +While yet the night is cool and dark, +The first carol of the lark,-- +Its plaintive murmurs seem to say +"I wait the sorrows of the day." + + + + +Two Songs by Sitara, of Kashmir + +Beloved! your hair was golden +As tender tints of sunrise, +As corn beside the River + In softly varying hues. +I loved you for your slightness, +Your melancholy sweetness, +Your changeful eyes, that promised + What your lips would still refuse. + +You came to me, and loved me, +Were mine upon the River, +The azure water saw us + And the blue transparent sky; +The Lotus flowers knew it, +Our happiness together, +While life was only River, + Only love, and you and I. + +Love wakened on the River, +To sounds of running water, +With silver Stars for witness + And reflected Stars for light; +Awakened to existence, +With ripples for first music +And sunlight on the River + For earliest sense of sight. + +Love grew upon the River +Among the scented flowers, +The open rosy flowers + Of the Lotus buds in bloom-- +Love, brilliant as the Morning, +More fervent than the Noon-day, +And tender as the Twilight + In its blue transparent gloom. + +Love died upon the River! +Cold snow upon the mountains, +The Lotus leaves turned yellow + And the water very grey. +Our kisses faint and falter, +The clinging hands unfasten, +The golden time is over + And our passion dies away. + + Away. To be forgotten, + A ripple on the River, + That flashes in the sunset, + That flashed,--and died away. + + +Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan + + Throb, throb, throb, +Far away in the blue transparent Night, +On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness, +She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat + Afar, afloat +On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light; + Hear the sound of the straining wood + Like a broken sob + Of a heart's distress, + Loving misunderstood. + +She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder, +On a silken sheet with a purple woven border, +Every cell of her brain is latent fire, +Every fibre tense with restrained desire. + And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer, + The boat is approaching nearer, nearer; + "How to wait through the moments' space + Till I see the light of my lover's face?" + + Throb, throb, throb, +The sound dies down the stream +Till it only clings at the senses' edge +Like a half-remembered dream. + Doubtless, he in the silence lies, + His fair face turned to the tender skies, + Starlight touching his sleeping eyes. +While his boat caught in the thickset sedge +And the waters round it gurgle and sob, + Or floats set free on the river's tide, + Oars laid aside. + +She is awake and knows no rest, +Passion dies and is dispossessed + Of his brief, despotic power. +But the Brain, once kindled, would still be afire +Were the whole world pasture to its desire, +And all of love, in a single hour,-- +A single wine cup, filled to the brim, + Given to slake its thirst. + +Some there are who are thus-wise cursed + Times that follow fulfilled desire + Are of all their hours the worst. +They find no Respite and reach no Rest, +Though passion fail and desire grow dim, + No assuagement comes from the thing possessed + For possession feeds the fire. + + "Oh, for the life of the bright hued things + Whose marriage and death are one, + A floating fusion on golden wings. + Alit with passion and sun! + + "But we who re-marry a thousand times, + As the spirit or senses will, + In a thousand ways, in a thousand climes, + We remain unsatisfied still." + +As her lover left her, alone, awake she lies, +With a sleepless brain and weary, half-closed eyes. +She turns her face where the purple silk is spread, +Still sweet with delicate perfume his presence shed. +Her arms remembered his vanished beauty still, +And, reminiscent of clustered curls, her fingers thrill. +While the wonderful, Starlit Night wears slowly on +Till the light of another day, serene and wan, + Pierces the eastern skies. + + + + +Palm Trees by the Sea + +Love, let me thank you for this! + Now we have drifted apart, +Wandered away from the sea,-- + For the fresh touch of your kiss, +For the young warmth of your heart, + For your youth given to me. + +Thanks: for the curls of your hair, + Softer than silk to the hand, +For the clear gaze of your eyes. + For yourself: delicate, fair, +Seen as you lay on the sand, + Under the violet skies. + +Thanks: for the words that you said,-- + Secretly, tenderly sweet, +All through the tropical day, + Till, when the sunset was red, +I, who lay still at your feet, + Felt my life ebbing away, + +Weary and worn with desire, + Only yourself could console. +Love let me thank you for this! + For that fierce fervour and fire +Burnt through my lips to my soul + From the white heat of your kiss! + +You were the essence of Spring, + Wayward and bright as a flame: +Though we have drifted apart, + Still how the syllables sing +Mixed in your musical name, + Deep in the well of my heart! + +Once in the lingering light, + Thrown from the west on the Sea, +Laid you your garments aside, + Slender and goldenly bright, +Glimmered your beauty, set free, + Bright as a pearl in the tide. + +Once, ere the thrill of the dawn + Silvered the edge of the sea, +I, who lay watching you rest,-- + Pale in the chill of the morn +Found you still dreaming of me + Stilled by love's fancies possessed. + +Fallen on sorrowful days, + Love, let me thank you for this, +You were so happy with me! + Wrapped in Youth's roseate haze, +Wanting no more than my kiss + By the blue edge of the sea! + +Ah, for those nights on the sand + Under the palms by the sea, +For the strange dream of those days + Spent in the passionate land, +For your youth given to me, + I am your debtor always! + + + + +Song by Gulbaz + +"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes +No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses? + +"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented, +Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented. + +"Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest, +What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?" + +But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight, +Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night. + +Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes, +Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses. + +And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known! +Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me all alone. + +"Since you said the rose-leaf cover sweet protection gave, but slight, +I have found this dear young lover to protect me through the night!" + + + + +Kashmiri Song + +Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar, + Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell? +Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far, + Before you agonise them in farewell? + +Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains, + Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell, +How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins + Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell. + +Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float + On those cool waters where we used to dwell, +I would have rather felt you round my throat, + Crushing out life, than waving me farewell! + + + + +Reverie of Ormuz the Persian + +Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance, +Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea, +Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence, +Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me. + +Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing, +Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled, +Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying, +Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World. + +Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence, +Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the Zenith less blue. +Even the ocean lessens the light of its green opalescence, +Since, to my sorrow I loved, loved and grew weary of, you. + +Why was our passion so fleeting, why had the flush of your beauty +Only so slender a spell, only so futile a power? +Yet, even thus ever is life, save when long custom or duty +Moulds into sober fruit Love's fragile and fugitive flower. + +Fain would my soul have been faithful; never an alien pleasure +Lured me away from the light lit in your luminous eyes, +But we have altered the World as pitiful man has leisure +To criticise, balance, take counsel, assuredly lies. + +All through the centuries Man has gathered his flower, and fenced it, +--Infinite strife to attain; infinite struggle to keep,-- +Holding his treasure awhile, all Fate and all forces against it, +Knowing it his no more, if ever his vigilance sleep. + +But we have altered the World as pitiful man has grown stronger, +So that the things we love are as easily kept as won, +Therefore the ancient fight can engage and detain us no longer, +And all too swiftly, alas, passion is over and done. + +Far too speedily now we can gather the coveted treasure, +Enjoy it awhile, be satiated, begin to tire; +And what shall be done henceforth with the profitless after-leisure, +Who has the breath to kindle the ash of a faded fire? + +Ah, if it only had lasted! After my ardent endeavour +Came the delirious Joy, flooding my life like a sea, +Days of delight that are burnt on the brain for ever and ever, +Days and nights when you loved, before you grew weary of me. + +Softly the sunset decreases dim in the violet Distance, +Even as Love's own fervour has faded away from me, +Leaving the weariness, the monotonous Weight of Existence,-- +All the farewells in the world weep in the sound of the sea. + + + + +Sunstroke + +Oh, straight, white road that runs to meet, + Across green fields, the blue green sea, +You knew the little weary feet + Of my child bride that was to be! + +Her people brought her from the shore + One golden day in sultry June, +And I stood, waiting, at the door, + Praying my eyes might see her soon. + +With eager arms, wide open thrown, + Now never to be satisfied! +Ere I could make my love my own + She closed her amber eyes and died. + +Alas! alas! they took no heed + How frail she was, my little one, +But brought her here with cruel speed + Beneath the fierce, relentless sun. + +We laid her on the marriage bed + The bridal flowers in her hand, +A maiden from the ocean led + Only, alas! to die inland. + +I walk alone; the air is sweet, + The white road wanders to the sea, +I dream of those two little feet + That grew so tired in reaching me. + + + + +Adoration + +Who does not feel desire unending + To solace through his daily strife, +With some mysterious Mental Blending, + The hungry loneliness of life? + +Until, by sudden passion shaken, + As terriers shake a rat at play, +He finds, all blindly, he has taken + The old, Hereditary way. + +Yet, in the moment of communion, + The very heart of passion's fire, +His spirit spurns the mortal union, + "Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!" + + * * * * + +Oh You, by whom my life is riven, + And reft away from my control, +Take back the hours of passion given! + Love me one moment from your soul. + +Although I once, in ardent fashion, + Implored you long to give me this; +(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion) + Your hair to touch, your lips to kiss + +Now that your gracious self has granted + The loveliness you hold as naught, +I find, alas! not that I wanted-- + Possession has not stifled Thought. + +Desire its aim has only shifted,-- + Built hopes upon another plan, +And I in love for you have drifted + Beyond all passion known to man. + +Beyond all dreams of soft caresses + The solacing of any kiss,-- +Beyond the fragrance of your tresses + (Once I had sold my soul for this!) + +But now I crave no mortal union + (Thanks for that sweetness in the past); +I need some subtle, strange communion, + Some sense that _I_ join _you_, at last. + +Long past the pulse and pain of passion, + Long left the limits of all love,-- +I crave some nearer, fuller fashion, + Some unknown way, beyond, above,-- + +Some infinitely inner fusion, + As Wave with Water; Flame with Fire,-- +Let me dream once the dear delusion + That I am You, Oh, Heart's Desire! + +Your kindness lent to my caresses + That beauty you so lightly prize,-- +The midnight of your sable tresses, + The twilight of your shadowed eyes. + +Ah, for that gift all thanks are given! + Yet, Oh, adored, beyond control, +Count all the passionate past forgiven + And love me once, once, from your soul. + + + + +Three Songs of Zahir-u-Din + +The tropic day's redundant charms + Cool twilight soothes away, +The sun slips down behind the palms + And leaves the landscape grey. + I want to take you in my arms + And kiss your lips away! + +I wake with sunshine in my eyes + And find the morning blue, +A night of dreams behind me lies + And all were dreams of you! + Ah, how I wish the while I rise, + That what I dream were true. + +The weary day's laborious pace, + I hasten and beguile +By fancies, which I backwards trace + To things I loved erstwhile; + The weary sweetness of your face, + Your faint, illusive smile. + +The silken softness of your hair + Where faint bronze shadows are, +Your strangely slight and youthful air, + No passions seem to mar,-- + Oh, why, since Fate has made you fair, + Must Fortune keep you far? + +Thus spent, the day so long and bright + Less hot and brilliant seems, +Till in a final flare of light + The sun withdraws his beams. + Then, in the coolness of the night, + I meet you in my dreams! + + +Second Song + +How much I loved that way you had +Of smiling most, when very sad, +A smile which carried tender hints + Of delicate tints + And warbling birds, + Of sun and spring, +And yet, more than all other thing, +Of Weariness beyond all Words! + +None other ever smiled that way, + None that I know,-- +The essence of all Gaiety lay, +Of all mad mirth that men may know, +In that sad smile, serene and slow, +That on your lips was wont to play. + +It needed many delicate lines +And subtle curves and roseate tints +To make that weary radiant smile; +It flickered, as beneath the vines +The sunshine through green shadow glints +On the pale path that lies below, +Flickered and flashed, and died away, +But the strange thoughts it woke meanwhile + Were wont to stay. + +Thoughts of Strange Things you used to know +In dim, dead lives, lived long ago, +Some madly mirthful Merriment +Whose lingering light is yet unspent,-- +Some unimaginable Woe,-- +Your strange, sad smile forgets these not, +Though you, yourself, long since, forgot! + + +Third Song, written during Fever + +To-night the clouds hang very low, + They take the Hill-tops to their breast, + And lay their arms about the fields. +The wind that fans me lying low, + Restless with great desire for rest, + No cooling touch of freshness yields. + +I, sleepless through the stifling heat, + Watch the pale Lightning's constant glow + Between the wide set open doors. +I lie and long amidst the heat,-- + The fever that my senses know, + For that cool slenderness of yours. + +So delicate and cool you are! + A roseleaf that has lain in snow, + A snowflake tinged with sunset fire. +You do not know, so young you are, + How Fever fans the senses' glow + To uncontrollable desire! + +And fills the spaces of the night + With furious and frantic thought, + One would not dare to think by day. +Ah, if you came to me to-night + These visions would be turned to naught, + These hateful dreams be held at bay! + +But you are far, and Loneliness + My only lover through the night; + And not for any word or prayer +Would you console my loneliness + Or lend yourself, serene and slight, + And the cool clusters of your hair. + +All through the night I long for you, + As shipwrecked men in tropics yearn + For the fresh flow of streams and springs. +My fevered fancies follow you + As dying men in deserts turn + Their thoughts to clear and chilly things. + +Such dreams are mine, and such my thirst, + Unceasing and unsatisfied, + Until the night is burnt away +Among these dreams and fevered thirst, + And, through the open doorways, glide + The white feet of the coming day. + + + + +The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks + +This man has taken my Husband's life + And laid my Brethren low, +No sister indeed, were I, no wife, + To pardon and let him go. + +Yet why does he look so young and slim + As he weak and wounded lies? +How hard for me to be harsh to him + With his soft, appealing eyes. + +His hair is ruffled upon the stone + And the slender wrists are bound, +So young! and yet he has overthrown + His scores on the battle ground. + +Would I were only a slave to-day, + To whom it were right and meet +To wash the stains of the War away, + The dust from the weary feet. + +Were I but one of my serving girls + To solace his pain to rest! +Shake out the sand from the soft loose curls, + And hold him against my breast! + +Have we such beauty around our Throne? + Such lithe and delicate strength? +Would God that I were the senseless stone + To support his slender length! + +I hate those wounds that trouble my sight, + Unknown! how I wish you lay, +Alone in my silken tent to-night + While I charmed the pain away. + +I would lay you down on the Royal bed, + I would bathe your wounds with wine, +And setting your feet against my head + Dream you were lover of mine. + +My Crown is heavy upon my hair, + The Jewels weigh on my breast, +All I would leave, with delight, to share + Your pale and passionate rest! + +But hands grow restless about their swords, + Lips murmur below their breath, +"The Queen is silent too long!" "My Lords, + --Take him away to death!" + + + + +Protest: By Zahir-u-Din + +Alas! alas! this wasted Night +With all its Jasmin-scented air, +Its thousand stars, serenely bright! +I lie alone, and long for you, +Long for your Champa-scented hair, +Your tranquil eyes of twilight hue; + +Long for the close-curved, delicate lips +--Their sinuous sweetness laid on mine-- +Here, where the slender fountain drips, +Here, where the yellow roses glow, +Pale in the tender silver shine +The stars across the garden throw. + +Alas! alas! poor passionate Youth! +Why must we spend these lonely nights? +The poets hardly speak the truth,-- +Despite their praiseful litany, +His season is not all delights +Nor every night an ecstasy! + +The very power and passion that make-- +_Might_ make--his days one golden dream, +How he must suffer for their sake! +Till, in their fierce and futile rage, +The baffled senses almost deem +They might be happier in old age. + +Age that can find red roses sweet, +And yet not crave a rose-red mouth; +Hear Bulbuls, with no wish that feet +Of sweeter singers went his way; +Inhale warm breezes from the South, +Yet never fed his fancy stray. + +From some near Village I can hear +The cadenced throbbing of a drum, +Now softly distant, now more near; +And in an almost human fashion, +It, plaintive, wistful, seems to come +Laden with sighs of fitful passion, + +To mock me, lying here alone +Among the thousand useless flowers +Upon the fountain's border-stone-- +Cold stone, that chills me as I lie +Counting the slowly passing hours +By the white spangles in the sky. + +Some feast the Tom-toms celebrate, +Where, close together, side by side, +Gay in their gauze and tinsel state +With lips serene and downcast eyes, +Sit the young bridegroom and his bride, +While round them songs and laughter rise. + +They are together; Why are we +So hopelessly, so far apart? +Oh, I implore you, come to me! +Come to me, Solace of mine eyes! +Come Consolation of my heart! +Light of my senses! What replies? + +A little, languid, mocking breeze +That rustles through the Jasmin flowers +And stirs among the Tamarind trees; +A little gurgle of the spray +That drips, unheard, though silent hours, +Then breaks in sudden bubbling play. + +Wind, have you never loved a rose? +And water, seek you not the Sea? +Why, therefore, mock at my repose? +Is it my fault I am alone +Beneath the feathery Tamarind tree +Whose shadows over me are thrown? + +Nay, I am mad indeed, with thirst +For all to me this night denied +And drunk with longing, and accurst +Beyond all chance of sleep or rest, +With love, unslaked, unsatisfied, +And dreams of beauty unpossessed. + +Hating the hour that brings you not, +Mad at the space betwixt us twain, +Sad for my empty arms, so hot +And fevered, even the chilly stone +Can scarcely cool their burning pain,-- +And oh, this sense of being alone! + +Take hence, O Night, your wasted hours, +You bring me not my Life's Delight, +My Star of Stars, my Flower of Flowers! +You leave me loveless and forlorn, +Pass on, most false and futile night, +Pass on, and perish in the Dawn! + + + + +Famine Song + +Death and Famine on every side + And never a sign of rain, +The bones of those who have starved and died + Unburied upon the plain. +What care have I that the bones bleach white? + To-morrow they may be mine, +But I shall sleep in your arms to-night + And drink your lips like wine! + +Cholera, Riot, and Sudden Death, + And the brave red blood set free, +The glazing eye and the failing breath,-- + But what are these things to me? +Your breath is quick and your eyes are bright + And your blood is red like wine, +And I shall sleep in your arms to-night + And hold your lips with mine! + +I hear the sound of a thousand tears, + Like softly pattering rain, +I see the fever, folly, and fears + Fulfilling man's tale of pain. +But for the moment your star is bright, + I revel beneath its shine, +For I shall sleep in your arms to-night + And feel your lips on mine! + +And you need not deem me over cold, + That I do not stop to think +For all the pleasure this Life may hold + Is on the Precipice brink. +Thought could but lessen my soul's delight, + And to-day she may not pine. +For I shall lie in your arms to-night + And close your lips with mine! + +I trust what sorrow the Fates may send + I may carry quietly through, +And pray for grace when I reach the end, + To die as a man should do. +To-day, at least, must be clear and bright, + Without a sorrowful sign, +Because I sleep in your arms to-night + And feel your lips on mine! + +So on I work, in the blazing sun, + To bury what dead we may, +But glad, oh, glad, when the day is done + And the night falls round us grey. +Would those we covered away from sight + Had a rest as sweet as mine! +For I shall sleep in your arms to-night + And drink your lips like wine! + + + + +The Window Overlooking the Harbour + +Sad is the Evening: all the level sand + Lies left and lonely, while the restless sea, +Tired of the green caresses of the land, + Withdraws into its own infinity. + +But still more sad this white and chilly Dawn + Filling the vacant spaces of the sky, +While little winds blow here and there forlorn + And all the stars, weary of shining, die. + +And more than desolate, to wake, to rise, + Leaving the couch, where softly sleeping still, +What through the past night made my heaven, lies; + And looking out across the window sill + +See, from the upper window's vantage ground, + Mankind slip into harness once again, +And wearily resume his daily round + Of love and labour, toil and strife and pain. + +How the sad thoughts slip back across the night: + The whole thing seems so aimless and so vain. +What use the raptures, passion and delight, + Burnt out; as though they could not wake again. + +The worn-out nerves and weary brain repeat + The question: Whither all these passions tend;-- +This curious thirst, so painful and so sweet, + So fierce, so very short-lived, to what end? + +Even, if seeking for ourselves, the Race, + The only immortality we know,-- +Even if from the flower of our embrace + Some spark should kindle, or some fruit should grow, + +What were the use? the gain, to us or it, + That we should cause another You or Me,-- +Another life, from our light passion lit, + To suffer like ourselves awhile and die. + +What aim, what end indeed? Our being runs + In a closed circle. All we know or see +Tends to assure us that a thousand Suns, + Teeming perchance with life, have ceased to be. + +Ah, the grey Dawn seems more than desolate, + And the past night of passion worse than waste, +Love but a useless flower, that soon or late, + Turns to a fruit with bitter aftertaste. + +Youth, even Youth, seems futile and forlorn + While the new day grows slowly white above. +Pale and reproachful comes the chilly Dawn + After the fervour of a night of love. + + + + +Back to the Border + +The tremulous morning is breaking + Against the white waste of the sky, +And hundreds of birds are awaking + In tamarisk bushes hard by. +I, waiting alone in the station, + Can hear in the distance, grey-blue, +The sound of that iron desolation, + The train that will bear me from you. + +'T will carry me under your casement, + You'll feel in your dreams as you lie +The quiver, from gable to basement, + The rush of my train sweeping by. +And I shall look out as I pass it,-- + Your dear, unforgettable door, +'T was _ours_ till last night, but alas! it + Will never be mine any more. + +Through twilight blue-grey and uncertain, + Where frost leaves the window-pane free, +I'll look at the tinsel-edged curtain + That hid so much pleasure for me. +I go to my long undone duty + Alone in the chill and the gloom, +My eyes are still full of the beauty + I leave in your rose-scented room. + +Lie still in your dreams; for your tresses + Are free of my lingering kiss. +I keep you awake with caresses + No longer; be happy in this! +From passion you told me you hated + You're now and for ever set free, +I pass in my train, sorrow-weighted, + Your house that was Heaven to me. + +You won't find a trace, when you waken, + Of me or my love of the past, +Rise up and rejoice! I have taken + My longed-for departure at last. +My fervent and useless persistence + You never need suffer again, +Nor even perceive in the distance + The smoke of my vanishing train! + + + + +Reverie: Zahir-u-Din + +Alone, I wait, till her twilight gate + The Night slips quietly through, +With shadow and gloom, and purple bloom, + Flung over the Zenith blue. + +Her stars that tremble, would fain dissemble + Light over lovers thrown,-- +Her hush and mystery know no history + Such as day may own. +Day has record of pleasure and pain, +But things that are done by Night remain + For ever and ever unknown. + +For a thousand years, 'neath a thousand skies, + Night has brought men love; +Therefore the old, old longings rise + As the light grows dim above. + +Therefore, now that the shadows close, + And the mists weird and white, +While Time is scented with musk and rose; + Magic with silver light. + +I long for love; will you grant me some? + Day is over at last. +Come! as lovers have always come, + Through the evenings of the Past. +Swiftly, as lovers have always come, +Softly, as lovers have always come + Through the long-forgotten Past. + + + + +Sea Song + +Against the planks of the cabin side, + (So slight a thing between them and me,) +The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed, + The great green waves of the Indian sea! + +Your face was white as the foam is white, + Your hair was curled as the waves are curled, +I would we had steamed and reached that night + The sea's last edge, the end of the world. + +The wind blew in through the open port, + So freshly joyous and salt and free, +Your hair it lifted, your lips it sought, + And then swept back to the open sea. + +The engines throbbed with their constant beat; + Your heart was nearer, and all I heard; +Your lips were salt, but I found them sweet, + While, acquiescent, you spoke no word. + +So straight you lay in your narrow berth, + Rocked by the waves; and you seemed to be +Essence of all that is sweet on earth, + Of all that is sad and strange at sea. + +And you were white as the foam is white, + Your hair was curled as the waves are curled. +Ah! had we but sailed and reached that night, + The sea's last edge, the end of the world! + + + + +To the Hills! + +'T is eight miles out and eight miles in, + Just at the break of morn. +'T is ice without and flame within, + To gain a kiss at dawn! + +Far, where the Lilac Hills arise + Soft from the misty plain, +A lone enchanted hollow lies + Where I at last drew rein. + +Midwinter grips this lonely land, + This stony, treeless waste, +Where East, due East, across the sand, + We fly in fevered haste. + +Pull up! the East will soon be red, + The wild duck westward fly, +And make above my anxious head, + Triangles in the sky. + +Like wind we go; we both are still + So young; all thanks to Fate! +(It cuts like knives, this air so chill,) + Dear God! if I am late! + +Behind us, wrapped in mist and sleep + The Ruined City lies, +(Although we race, we seem to creep!) + While lighter grow the skies. + +Eight miles out only, eight miles in, + Good going all the way; +But more and more the clouds begin + To redden into day. + +And every snow-tipped peak grows pink + An iridescent gem! +My heart beats quick, with joy, to think + How I am nearing them! + +As mile on mile behind us falls, + Till, Oh, delight! I see +My Heart's Desire, who softly calls + Across the gloom to me. + +The utter joy of that First Love + No later love has given, +When, while the skies grew light above, + We entered into Heaven. + + + + +Till I Wake + +When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly, + Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South. +So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening, + Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth. + + + + +His Rubies: Told by Valgovind + +Along the hot and endless road, + Calm and erect, with haggard eyes, +The prisoner bore his fetters' load + Beneath the scorching, azure skies. + +Serene and tall, with brows unbent, + Without a hope, without a friend, +He, under escort, onward went, + With death to meet him at the end. + +The Poppy fields were pink and gay + On either side, and in the heat +Their drowsy scent exhaled all day + A dream-like fragrance almost sweet. + +And when the cool of evening fell + And tender colours touched the sky, +He still felt youth within him dwell + And half forgot he had to die. + +Sometimes at night, the Camp-fires lit + And casting fitful light around, +His guard would, friend-like, let him sit + And talk awhile with them, unbound. + +Thus they, the night before the last, + Were resting, when a group of girls +Across the small encampment passed, + With laughing lips and scented curls. + +Then in the Prisoner's weary eyes + A sudden light lit up once more, +The women saw him with surprise, + And pity for the chains he bore. + +For little women reck of Crime + If young and fair the criminal be +Here in this tropic, amorous clime + Where love is still untamed and free. + +And one there was, she walked less fast, + Behind the rest, perhaps beguiled +By his lithe form, who, as she passed, + Waited a little while, and smiled. + +The guard, in kindly Eastern fashion, + Smiled to themselves, and let her stay. +So tolerant of human passion, + "To love he has but one more day." + +Yet when (the soft and scented gloom + Scarce lighted by the dying fire) +His arms caressed her youth and bloom, + With him it was not all desire. + +"For me," he whispered, as he lay, + "But little life remains to live. +One thing I crave to take away: + You have the gift; but will you give? + +"If I could know some child of mine + Would live his life, and see the sun +Across these fields of poppies shine, + What should I care that mine is done? + +"To die would not be dying quite, + Leaving a little life behind, +You, were you kind to me to-night, + Could grant me this; but--are you kind? + +"See, I have something here for you + For you and It, if It there be." +Soft in the gloom her glances grew, + With gentle tears he could not see. + +He took the chain from off his neck, + Hid in the silver chain there lay +Three rubies, without flaw or fleck. + She answered softly "I will stay." + +He drew her close; the moonless skies + Shed little light; the fire was dead. +Soft pity filled her youthful eyes, + And many tender things she said. + +Throughout the hot and silent night + All that he asked of her she gave. +And, left alone ere morning light, + He went serenely to the grave, + +Happy; for even when the rope + Confined his neck, his thoughts were free, +And centered round his Secret Hope + The little life that was to be. + +When Poppies bloomed again, she bore + His child who gaily laughed and crowed, +While round his tiny neck he wore + The rubies given on the road. + +For his small sake she wished to wait, + But vainly to forget she tried, +And grieving for the Prisoner's fate, + She broke her gentle heart and died. + + + + +Song of Taj Mahomed + +Dear is my inlaid sword; across the Border +It brought me much reward; dear is my Mistress, +The jewelled treasure of an amorous hour. +Dear beyond measure are my dreams and Fancies. + +These I adore; for these I live and labour, +Holding them more than sword or jewelled Mistress, +For this indeed may rust, and that prove faithless, +But, till my limbs are dust, I have my Fancies. + + + + +The Garden of Kama: +Kama the Indian Eros + +The daylight is dying, +The Flying fox flying, + Amber and amethyst burn in the sky. +See, the sun throws a late, +Lingering, roseate + Kiss to the landscape to bid it good-bye. + +The time of our Trysting! +Oh, come, unresisting, + Lovely, expectant, on tentative feet. +Shadow shall cover us, +Roses bend over us, + Making a bride chamber, sacred and sweet. + +We know not life's reason, +The length of its season, + Know not if they know, the great Ones above. +We none of us sought it, +And few could support it, + Were it not gilt with the glamour of love. + +But much is forgiven +To Gods who have given, + If but for an hour, the Rapture of Youth. +You do not yet know it, +But Kama shall show it, + Changing your dreams to his Exquisite Truth. + +The Fireflies shall light you, +And naught shall afright you, + Nothing shall trouble the Flight of the Hours. +Come, for I wait for you, +Night is too late for you, + Come, while the twilight is closing the flowers. + +Every breeze still is, +And, scented with lilies, + Cooled by the twilight, refreshed by the dew, +The garden lies breathless, +Where Kama, the Deathless, + In the hushed starlight, is waiting for you. + + + + +Camp Follower's Song, Gomal River + +We have left Gul Kach behind us, + Are marching on Apozai,-- +Where pleasure and rest are waiting + To welcome us by and by. + +We're falling back from the Gomal, + Across the Gir-dao plain, +The camping ground is deserted, + We'll never come back again. + +Along the rocks and the defiles, + The mules and the camels wind. +Good-bye to Rahimut-Ullah, + The man who is left behind. + +For some we lost in the skirmish, + And some were killed in the fight, +But he was captured by fever, + In the sentry pit, at night. + +A rifle shot had been swifter, + Less trouble a sabre thrust, +But his Fate decided fever, + And each man dies as he must. + +Behind us, red in the distance. + The wavering flames rise high, +The flames of our burning grass-huts, + Against the black of the sky. + +We hear the sound of the river, + An ever-lessening moan, +The hearts of us all turn backwards + To where he is left alone. + +We sing up a little louder, + We know that we feel bereft, +We're leaving the camp together, + And only one of us left. + +The only one, out of many, + And each must come to his end, +I wish I could stop this singing, + He happened to be my friend. + +We're falling back from the Gomal + We're marching on Apozai, +And pleasure and rest are waiting + To welcome us by and by. + +Perhaps the feast will taste bitter, + The lips of the girls less kind,-- +Because of Rahimut-Ullah, + The man who is left behind! + + + + +Song of the Colours: +by Taj Mahomed + +_Rose-colour_ +Rose Pink am I, the colour gleams and glows + In many a flower; her lips, those tender doors +By which, in time of love, love's essence flows + From him to her, are dyed in delicate Rose. +Mine is the earliest Ruby light that pours + Out of the East, when day's white gates unclose. + +On downy peach, and maiden's downier cheek + I, in a flush of radiant bloom, alight, +Clinging, at sunset, to the shimmering peak + I veil its snow in floods of Roseate light. + +_Azure_ +Mine is the heavenly hue of Azure skies, + Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings, +Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes, + Whose lovely looks light only on lovely things. + +Mine the Blue Distance, delicate and clear, + Mine the Blue Glory of the morning sea, +All that the soul so longs for, finds not here, + Fond eyes deceive themselves, and find in me. + +_Scarlet_ +Hail! to the Royal Red of living Blood, + Let loose by steel in spirit-freeing flood, +Forced from faint forms, by toil or torture torn + Staining the patient gates of life new born. + +Colour of War and Rage, of Pomp and Show, + Banners that flash, red flags that flaunt and glow, +Colour of Carnage, Glory, also Shame, + Raiment of women women may not name. + +I hide in mines, where unborn Rubies dwell, + Flicker and flare in fitful fire in Hell, +The outpressed life-blood of the grape is mine, + Hail! to the Royal Purple Red of Wine. + +Strong am I, over strong, to eyes that tire, + In the hot hue of Rapine, Riot, Flame. +Death and Despair are black, War and Desire, + The two red cards in Life's unequal game. + +_Green_ +I am the Life of Forests, and Wandering Streams, + Green as the feathery reeds the Florican love, +Young as a maiden, who of her marriage dreams, + Still sweetly inexperienced in ways of Love. + +Colour of Youth and Hope, some waves are mine, + Some emerald reaches of the evening sky. +See, in the Spring, my sweet green Promise shine, + Never to be fulfilled, of by and by. + +Never to be fulfilled; leaves bud, and ever + Something is wanting, something falls behind; +The flowered Solstice comes indeed, but never + That light and lovely summer men divined. + +_Violet_ +I were the colour of Things, (if hue they had) + That are hard to name. +Of curious, twisted thoughts that men call "mad" + Or oftener "shame." +Of that delicate vice, that is hardly vice, + So reticent, rare, +Ethereal, as the scent of buds and spice, + In this Eastern air. + +On palm-fringed shores I colour the Cowrie shell, + With its edges curled; +And, deep in Datura poison buds, I dwell + In a perfumed world. +My lilac tinges the edge of the evening sky + Where the sunset clings. +My purple lends an Imperial Majesty + To the robes of kings. + +_Yellow_ +Gold am I, and for me, ever men curse and pray, + Selling their souls and each other, by night and day. +A sordid colour, and yet, I make some things fair, + Dying sunsets, fields of corn, and a maiden's hair. + +Thus they discoursed in the daytime,--Violet, Yellow, and Blue, + Emerald, Scarlet, and Rose-colour, the pink and perfect hue. +Thus they spoke in the sunshine, when their beauty was manifest, + Till the Night came, and the Silence, and gave them an equal rest. + + + + +Lalila, to the Ferengi Lover + +Why above others was I so blessed + And honoured? to be chosen one +To hold you, sleeping, against my breast, + As now I may hold your only son. + +Twelve months ago; that wonderful night! + You gave your life to me in a kiss; +Have I done well, for that past delight, + In return, to have given you this? + +Look down at his face, your face, beloved, + His eyes are azure as yours are blue. +In every line of his form is proved + How well I loved you, and only you. + +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, + +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. + + + + +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 together. + +East and West so gaily blending, for a little space, +All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' Enchanted place! + +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?"_ + + + + +"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, + 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, but 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! + + + + +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. + + + + +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. + + + + +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! + + + + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + + + + +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 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! + + + + +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! + +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. + + + + +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; +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 because 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 drifting 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. + +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. + + + + +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. + + + + +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!" + + + + +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, during 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 fleetest 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, transported 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. + + +Fine woven silk, from the further East, should conceal 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 Pleasure 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. + + + + +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 eyes, + And she, whose senses wait his waking hand, +Impatient youth, that tired but sleepless lies, + Will read perhaps, and reading, understand. + +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! + + + + +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. + +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, +Yet, 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. + + + + +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; + +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? + + + + +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 kissed, + 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. + +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. + + + + +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, +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 Ali, 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, +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! + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS *** + +This file should be named inlly10.txt or inlly10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, inlly11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, inlly10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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