The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
Author: Laurence Hope
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5125] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK, last poems ***
This eBook was produced by Gordon Keener.
Last Poems Translations from the Book of Indian Love
Laurence Hope [Adela Florence Cory “Violet” Nicolson]
I, who of lighter love wrote many a verse,
Made public never words
inspired by thee,
Lest strangers’ lips should carelessly rehearse
Things that were sacred
and too dear to me.
Thy soul was noble; through these fifteen years
Mine eyes familiar,
found no fleck nor flaw,
Stern to thyself, thy comrades’ faults and fears
Proved generously thine
only law.
Small joy was I to thee; before we met
Sorrow had left thee
all too sad to save.
Useless my love—as vain as this regret
That pours my hopeless
life across thy grave.
L. H.
Oh, Masters, you who rule the world,
Will you not wait with
me awhile,
When swords are sheathed and sails are furled,
And all the fields with
harvest smile?
I would not waste your time for long,
I ask you but, when
you are tired,
To read how by the weak, the strong
Are weighed and worshipped
and desired.
When weary of the Mart, the Loom,
The Withering-house,
the Riffle-blocks,
The Barrack-square, the Engine-room,
The pick-axe, ringing
on the rocks,—
When tents are pitched and work is done,
While restful twilight
broods above,
By fresh-lit lamp, or dying sun,
See in my songs how
women love.
We shared your lonely watch by night,
We knew you faithful
at the helm,
Our thoughts went with you through the fight,
That saved a soul,—or
wrecked a realm
Ah, how our hearts leapt forth to you,
In pride and joy, when
you prevailed,
And when you died, serene and true:
—We wept
in silence when you failed!
Oh,
brain that did not gain the gold!
Oh,
arm, that could not wield the sword,
Here
is the love, that is not sold,
Here
are the hearts to hail you Lord!
You played and lost the game? What then?
The rules are harsh
and hard we know,
You, still, Oh, brothers, are the men
Whom we in secret reverence
so.
Your work was waste? Maybe your share
Lay in the hour you
laughed and kissed;
Who knows but what your son shall wear
The laurels that his
father missed?
Ay, you who win, and you who lose,
Whether you triumph,—or
despair,—
When your returning footsteps choose
The homeward track,
our love is there.
For, since the world is ordered thus,
To you the fame, the
stress, the sword,
We can but wait, until to us
You give yourselves,
for our reward.
To Whaler’s deck and Coral beach,
To lonely Ranch and
Frontier-Fort,
Beyond the narrow bounds of speech
I lay the cable of my
thought.
I fain would send my thanks to you,
(Though who am I, to
give you praise?)
Since what you are, and work you do,
Are lessons for our
easier ways.
’Neath
alien stars your camp-fires glow,
I
know you not,—your tents are far.
My
hope is but in song to show,
How
honoured and dear you are.
Although my life, which thou hast scarred and shaken,
Retains awhile some
influence of thee,
As shells, by faithless waves long since forsaken,
Still murmur with the
music of the Sea,
I shall forget. Not thine the haunting beauty,
Which, once beheld,
for ever holds the heart,
Or, if resigned from stress of Fate or Duty,
Takes part of life away:—the
dearer part.
I gave thee love; thou gavest but Desire.
Ah, the delusion of
that summer night!
Thy soul vibrated at the rate of Fire;
Mine, with the rhythm
of the waves of Light.
It is my love for thee that I regret,
Not thee, thyself, and hence,—I shall forget!
Ah, what hast thou done with that Lover of mine?
The Lover who only cared for
thee?
Mine for a handful of nights, and thine
For the Nights that Are and
the Days to Be,
The scent of the Champa lost its sweet—
So sweet is was in the Times
that Were!—
Since His alone, of the numerous feet
That climb my steps, have
returned not there.
Ahi,
Yasmini, return not there!
Art thou yet athrill at the touch of His hand,
Art thou still athirst for
His waving hair?
Nay, passion thou never couldst understand,
Life’s heights and depths
thou wouldst never dare.
The Great Things left thee untouched, unmoved,
The Lesser Things had thy
constant care.
Ah, what hast thou done with the Lover I loved,
Who found me wanting, and
thee so fair?
Ahi,
Yasmini, He found her fair!
Nay, nay, the greatest of all was thine;
The love of the One whom I
craved for so,
But much I doubt if thou couldst divine
The Grace and Glory of Love,
or know
The worth of the One whom thine arms embraced.
I may misjudge thee, but who
can tell?
So hard it is, for the one displaced,
To weigh the worth of a rival’s
spell.
Ahi,
Yasmini, thy rival’s spell!
And Thou, whom I loved: have the seasons brought
That fair content, which allured
Thee so?
Is it all that Thy delicate fancy wrought?
Yasmini wonders; she may not
know.
Yet never the Stars desert the sky,
To fade away in the desolate
Dawn,
But Yasmini watches their glory die,
And mourns for her own Bright
Star withdrawn.
Ahi,
Yasmini, the lonely dawn!
Ah, never the lingering gold dies down
In a sunset flare of resplendent
light,
And never the palm-tree’s feathery crown
Uprears itself to the shadowy
night,
But Yasmini thinks of those evenings past,
When she prayed the glow of
the glimmering West
To vanish quickly, that night, at last,
Might bring Thee back to her
waiting breast.
Ahi,
Yasmini, how sweet that rest!
Yet I would not say that I always weep;
The force, that made such
a desperate thing
Of my love for Thee, has not fallen asleep,
The blood still leaps, and
the senses sing,
While other passion has oft availed.
(Other Love—Ah,
my One, forgive!—)
To aid, when Churus and Opium failed;—
I could not suffer so much
and live.
Ahi,
Yasmini, who had to live!
Nay, why should I say “Forgive” to Thee?
To whom my lovers and I are
naught,
Who granted some passionate nights to me,
Then rose and left me with
never a thought!
And yet, Ah, yet, for those Nights that Were,
Thy passive limbs and thy
loose loved hair,
I would pay, as I have paid, all these days,
With the love that kills and
the thought that slays.
Ahi,
Yasmini, thy youth it slays!
The youthful widow, with shaven hair,
Whose senses ache for the
love of a man,
The young Priest, knowing that women are fair,
Who stems his longing as best
he can,
These suffer not as I suffer for Thee;
For the Soul desires what
the senses crave,
There will never be pleasure or peace for me,
Since He who wounded, alone
could save.
Ahi,
Yasmini, He will not save!
The torchlight flares, and the lovers lean
Towards Yasmini, with yearning
eyes,
Who dances, wondering what they mean,
And gives cold kisses, and
scant replies.
They talk of Love, she withholds the name,—
(Love came to her as a Flame
of Fire!)
From things that are only a weary shame;
Trivial Vanity;—light
Desire.
Ahi,
Yasmini, the light Desire!
Yasmini bends to the praise of men,
And looks in the mirror, upon
her hand,[1]
To curse the beauty that failed her then—
Ah, none of her lovers can
understand!
How her whole life hung on that beauty’s power,
The spell that waned at the
final test,
The charm that paled in the vital hour,—
Which won so many,—yet
lost the best!
Ahi,
Yasmini, who lost the best!
She leaves the dancing to reach the roof,
With the lover who claims
the passing hour,
Her lips are his, but her eyes aloof
While the starlight falls
in a silver shower.
Let him take what pleasure, what love, he may,
He, too, will suffer e’er
life be spent,—
But Yasmini’s soul has wandered away
To join the Lover, who came,—and
went!
Ahi,
Yasmini, He came,—and went!
[1] Indian women wear a small mirror in a ring on their thumbs.
She was fair as a Passion-flower,
(But little of love he knew.)
Her lucent eyes were like amber wine,
And her eyelids stained with
blue.
He called them the Gates of Fair Desire,
And the Lakes where Beauty
lay,
But I looked into them once, and saw
The eyes of Beasts of Prey.
He praised her teeth, that were small and white
As lilies upon his lawn,
While I remembered a tiger’s fangs
That met in a speckled fawn.
She had her way; a lover the more,
And I had a friend the less.
For long there was nothing to do but wait
And suffer his happiness.
But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss
And nestle it in her breast,
For dead, he is drifting down to sea,
And his own hand wrought his
rest
Beat on the Tom-toms, and scatter the flowers,
Jasmin, Hibiscus, vermillion
and white,
This is the day, and the Hour of Hours,
Bring forth the Bride for
her Lover’s delight.
Maidens no more, as a maiden shall claim her,
Near, in his Mystery, draweth
Desire.
Who, if she waver a moment, shall blame her?
She is a flower, and love
is a fire.
Choti
Tinchaurya syani hogayi!
Give her the anklets, the rings and the necklace,
Darken her eyelids with delicate
Art,
Heighten the beauty, so youthful and fleckless,
By the Gods favoured, oh,
Bridegroom thou art!
Twine in thy fingers her fingers so slender,
Circle together the Mystical
Fire,
Bridegroom,—a whisper—be gentle
and tender,
Choti Tinchaurya knows not
desire.
Abhi
Tinchaurya syani hogayi!
Bring forth the silks and the veil that shall cover
Beauty, till yesterday, careless
and wild,
Red are her lips for the kiss of a lover,
Ripe are her breasts for the
lips of a child.
Centre and Shrine of Mysterious Power,
Chalice of Pleasure and Rose
of Delight,
Shyly aware of the swift-coming hour,
Waiting the shade and the
silence of night,
Choti
Tinchaurya syani hogayi!
Still must the Bridegroom his longing dissemble,
Longing to loosen the silk-woven
cord,
Ah, how his fingers will flutter and tremble,
Fingers well skilled with
the bridle and sword.
Thine is his valor oh, Bride, and his beauty,
Thine to possess and re-issue
again,
Such is thy tender and passionate duty,
Licit thy pleasure and honoured
thy pain.
Choti
Tinchaurya syani hogayi!
Choti Tinchaurya, lovely and tender,
Still all unbroken to sorrow
and strife.
Come to the Bridegroom who, silk-clad and slender,
Brings thee the Honour and
Burden of Life.
Bidding farewell to thy light-hearted playtime,
Worship thy Lover with fear
and delight,
Art thou not ever, though slave of his daytime,
Choti Tinchaurya, queen of
his night?
Choti
Tinchaurya syani hogayi!
Something compels me, somewhere. Yet I see
No clear command in Life’s long mystery.
Oft have I flung myself beside my horse,
To drink the water from the
roadside mire,
And felt the liquid through my being course,
Stilling the anguish of my
thirst’s desire.
A simple want; so easily allayed;
After the burning march; water and shade.
Also I lay against the loved one’s heart
Finding fulfilment in that
resting-place,
Feeling my longing, quenched, was but a part
Of nature’s ceaseless
striving for the race.
But now, I know not what they would with me;
Matter or Force or God, if Gods there be.
I wait; I question; Nature heeds me not.
She does but urge in answer
to my prayer,
“Arise and do!” Alas, she adds not what;
“Arise and go!”
Alas, she says not where!
I cast the Net of Memory,
Man’s torment and delight,
Over the level Sands of Youth
That lay serenely bright,
Their tranquil gold at times submerged
In the Spring Tides of Love’s Delight.
The Net brought up, in silver gleams,
Forgotten truth and fancies fair:
Like opal shells, small happy facts
Within the Net entangled were
With the red coral of his lips,
The waving seaweed of his hair.
We were so young; he was so fair.
“The Atlas summits were veiled in purple gloom,
But a golden moon above rose
clear and free.
The cactus thicket was ruddy with scarlet bloom
Where, through the silent
shadow, he came to me.”
“All my sixteen summers were but for this,
That He should pass, and,
pausing, find me fair.
You Stars! bear golden witness! My lips were
his;
I would not live till others
have fastened there.”
“Oh take me, Death, ere ever the charm shall
fade,
Ah, close these eyes, ere
ever the dream grow dim.
I welcome thee with rapture, and unafraid,
Even as yesternight I welcomed
Him.”
* * * * *
“Not
now, Impatient one; it well may be
That
ten moons hence I shall return for thee.”
Beauty, the Gift of Gifts, I give to thee.
Pleasure and love shall spring
around thy feet
As through the lake the lotuses arise
Pinkly transparent and divinely
sweet.
I give thee eyes aglow like morning stars,
Delicate brows, a mist of
sable tresses,
That all the journey of thy lie may be
Lit up by love and softened
by caresses.
For those who once were proud and softly bred
Shall, kneeling, wait thee
as thou passest by,
They who were pure shall stretch forth eager hands
Crying, “Thy pity, Lord,
before we die!”
And one shall murmur, “If the sun at dawn
Shall open and caress a happy
flower,
What blame to him, although the blossom fade
In the full splendour of his
noontide power?”
And one, “If aloes close together grow
It well may chance a plant
shall wounded be,
Pierced by the thorntips of another’s leaves,
Thus am I hurt unconsciously
by thee.”
For some shall die and many more shall sin,
Suffering for thy sake till
seven times seven,
Because of those most perfect lips of thine
Which held the power to make
or mar their heaven.
And though thou givest back but cruelty,
Their love, persistent, shall
not heed nor care,
All those whose ears are fed with blame of thee
Shall say, “It may be
so, but he was fair.”
Ay, those who lost the whole of youth for thee,
Made early and for ever, shamed
and sad,
Shall sigh, re-living some sweet memory,
“Ah, once it was his
will to make me glad.”
Thy nights shall be as bright as summer days,
The sequence of thy sins shall
seem as duty,
Since I have given thee, Oh, Gift of Gifts!—
The pale perfection of unrivalled
beauty.
Talk not, my Lord, of unrequited love,
Since love requites itself
most royally.
Do we not live but by the sun above,
And takes he any heed of thee
or me?
Though in my firmament thou wilt not shine,
Thy glory, as a Star, is none
the less.
Oh, Rose, though all unplucked by hand of mine,
Still am I debtor to thy loveliness.
The sun was hot on the tamarind trees,
Their shadows shrivelled and
shrank.
No coolness came on the off-shore breeze
That rattled the scrub on
the bank.
She stretched her appealing arms to me,
Uplifting the Flagon of Love to me,
Till—great indeed was my unslaked thirst—
I paused, I stooped, and I
drank!
I went with my foe to the edge of the crater,—
But no one to return, we knew,—
The lava’s heat had never been greater
Than the ire between us two.
He flung back his head and he mocked at me,
He spat unspeakable words at me,
Our eyes met, and our knives met,
I saw red, and I slew!
Such were my deeds when my youth was hot,
And force was new to my hand,
With many more that I tell thee not,
Well known in my native land.
These show thy Christ when thou prayest to Him,
He too was a man thou sayest of Him,
Therefore He, when I reach His feet,
Will remember, and understand.
Out I came from the dancing-place:
The night-wind met me face to face—
A wind off the harbour, cold and keen,
“I know,” it whistled, “where thou
hast been.”
A faint voice fell from the stars above—
“Thou? whom we lighted to shrines of Love!”
I found when I reached my lonely room
A faint sweet scent in the unlit gloom.
And this was the worst of all to bear,
For someone had left while lilac there.
The flower you loved, in times that were.
Ay, thou has found thy kingdom, Yasin Khan,
Thy fathers’ pomp and
power are thine, at last.
No more the rugged roads of Khorasan,
The scanty food and tentage
of the past!
Wouldst thou make war? thy followers know no fear.
Where shouldst thou lead them
but to victory?
Wouldst thou have love? thy soft-eyed slaves draw
near,
Eager to drain thy strength
away from thee.
My thoughts drag backwards to forgotten days,
To scenes etched deeply on
my heart by pain;
The thirsty marches, ambuscades, and frays,
The hostile hills, the burnt
and barren plain.
Hast thou forgotten how one night was spent,
Crouched in a camel’s
carcase by the road,
Along which Akbar’s soldiers, scouting, went,
And he himself, all unsuspecting,
rode?
Did we not waken one despairing dawn,
Attacked in front, cut off
in rear, by snow,
Till, like a tiger leaping on a fawn,
Half of the hill crashed down
upon the foe?
Once, as thou mournd’st thy lifeless brother’s
fate,
The red tears falling from
thy shattered wrist,
A spent Waziri, forceful still, in hate,
Covered they heart, ten paces
off,—and missed!
Ahi, men thrust a worn and dinted sword
Into a velvet-scabbarded repose;
The gilded pageants that salute thee Lord
Cover one sorrow-rusted
heart, God knows.
Ah, to exchange this wealth of idle days
For one cold reckless night
of Khorasan!
To crouch once more before the camp-fire blaze
That lit the lonely eyes of
Yasin Khan.
To watch the starlight glitter on the snows,
The plain stretched round
us like a waveless sea,
Waiting until thy weary lids should close
To slip my furs and spread
them over thee.
How the wind howled about the lonely pass,
While the faint snow-shine
of that plateaued space
Lit, where it lay upon the frozen grass,
The mournful, tragic beauty
of thy face.
Thou hast enough caressed the scented hair
Of these soft-breasted girls
who waste thee so.
Hast thou not sons for every adult year?
Let us arise, O Yasin Khan,
and go!
Let us escape from these prison bars
To gain the freedom of an
open sky,
Thy soul and mine, alone beneath the stars,
Intriguing danger, as in days
gone by.
Nay; there is no returning, Yasin Khan.
The white peaks ward the passes,
as of yore,
The wind sweeps o’er the wastes of Khorasan;—
But thou and I go thitherward
no more.
Close, ah, too close, the bitter knowledge clings,
We may not follow where my
fancies yearn.
The years go hence, and wild and lovely things,
Their own, go with
them, never to return.
(Translation by Moolchand)
Be still, my heart, and listen,
For sweet and yet acute
I hear the wistful music
Of Khristna and his flute.
Across the cool, blue evenings,
Throughout the burning days,
Persuasive and beguiling,
He plays and plays and plays.
Ah, none may hear such music
Resistant to its charms,
The household work grows weary,
And cold the husband’s
arms.
I must arise and follow,
To seek, in vain pursuit,
The blueness and the distance,
The sweetness of that flute!
In linked and liquid sequence,
The plaintive notes dissolve
Divinely tender secrets
That none but he can solve.
Oh, Khristna, I am coming,
I can no more delay.
“My heart has flown to join thee,”
How can my footsteps stay?
Beloved, such thoughts have peril;
The wish is in my mind
That I had fired the jungle,
And left no leaf behind,—
Burnt all bamboos to ashes,
And made their music mute,—
To save thee from the magic
Of Khristna and his flute.
Had I been young I could have claimed to fold thee
For many days against my eager
breast;
But, as things are, how can I hope to hold thee
Once thou hast wakened from
this fleeting rest?
Clear shone the moonlight, so that thou couldst find
me,
Yet not so clear that thou
couldst see my face,
Where in the shadow of the palms behind me
I waited for thy steps, for
thy embrace.
What reck I now my morning life was lonely?
For widowed feet the ways
are always rough.
Though thou hast come to me at sunset only,
Still thou hast come, my Lord,
it is enough.
Ah, mine no more the glow of dawning beauty,
The fragrance and the dainty
gloss of youth,
Worn by long years of solitude and duty,
I have no bloom to offer thee
in truth.
Yet, since these eyes of mine have never wandered,
Still may they gleam with
long forgotten light.
Since in no wanton way my youth was squandered,
Some sense of youth still
clings to me to-night.
Thy lips are fresh as dew on budding roses,
The gold of dawn still lingers
in thy hair,
While the abandonment of sleep discloses
How every attitude of youth
is fair.
Thou art so pale, I hardly dare caress thee,
Too brown my fingers show
against the white.
Ahi, the glory, that I should possess thee,
Ahi, the grief, but for a
single night!
The tulip tree has pallid golden flowers
That grow more rosy as their
petals fade;
Such is the splendour of my evening hours
Whose time of youth was wasted
in the shade.
I shall not wait to see to-morrow’s morning,
Too bright the golden dawn
for me,—too bright,—
How could I bear thine eyes’ unconscious scorning
Of what so pleased thee in
the dimmer light?
It may be wine had brought some brief illusion,
Filling thy brain with rainbow
fantasy,
Or youth, with moonlight, making sweet collusion,
Threw an alluring glamour
over me
Therefore I leave thee softly, to awaken
When the first sun rays warm
thy blue-veined breast,
Smiling and all unknowing I have taken
The poppied drink that brings
me endless rest.
Thus would I have thee rise; thy fancy laden
With the vague sweetness of
the bygone night,
Thinking of me as some consenting maiden,
Whose beauty blossomed first
for thy delight.
While I, if any kindly visions hover
Around the silence of my last
repose,
Shall dream of thee, my pale and radiant lover,
Who made my life so lovely
at its close!
Now is the season of my youth,
Not thus shall I always be,
Listen, dear Lord, thou too art young,
Take thy pleasure with me.
My hair is straight as the falling rain,
And fine as morning mist,
I am a rose awaiting thee
That none have touched or
kissed.
Do as thou wilt with mine
and me,
Beloved, I only pray,
Follow the promptings of thy youth.
Let there be no delay!
A leaf that flutters upon the bough,
A moment, and it is gone,—
A bubble amid the fountain spray,—
Ah, pause, and think thereon;
For such is youth and its passing bloom
That wait for thee this hour,
If aught in thy heart incline to me
Ah, stoop and pluck thy flower!
Come, my Lord, to the temple
shade,
Where cooling fountains play,
If aught in thy heart incline to love
Let there be no delay!
Many shall faint with love of me
And I shall slake their thirst,
But Fate has brought thee hither to-day
That thou shouldst be the
first.
Old, so old are the temple-walls,
Love is older than they;
But I am the short-lived temple rose,
Blooming for thee to-day.
Thine am I, Prince, and only
thine,
What is there more so say ?
If aught in thy heart incline to love
Let there be no delay!
I was sold to the Rao of Ilore,
Slender and tall was he.
When his litter carried him down the street
I peeped through the thatch
to see.
Ah,
the eyes of the Rao of Ilore,
My
lover that was to be!
The hair that lay on his youthful brow
Was curled like an ocean wave;
His eyes were lit with a tender smile,
But his lips were soft and
grave.
For sake of these things I was still with joy
When the silver coins were
paid,
And they took me up to the Palace gates,
Delighted and unafraid.
Ah,
the eyes of the Rao of Ilore,
May
never their brilliance fade!
So near was I to the crown of life!
Ten thousand times, alas!
The Diwan leant from the latticed hall,
Looked down and saw me pass.
He begged for me from the Rao of Ilore,
Who answered, “She is
thine,
Thou wert ever more than a father to me,
And thy desires are mine.”
Ah,
the eyes of the Rao of Ilore
That
never had looked in mine!
My years were spent in the Diwan’s Courts,
My youth died down that day.
For sake of thine own content of mind
My lost beloved, I pray
That never my Lord a love may know
Like that he threw away.
Ah,
the eyes of the Rao of Ilore,
Who
threw my life away!
To M. C. N.
Thou hast no wealth, nor any pride of power,
Thy life is offered on affection’s
altar.
Small sacrifices claim thee, hour by hour,
Yet on the tedious path thou
dost not falter.
To the unknowing, well thy days might seem
Circled by solitude and tireless
duty,
Yet is thy soul made radiant by a dream
Of delicate and rainbow-coloured
beauty.
Never a flower trembles in the wind,
Never a sunset lingers on
the sea,
But something of its fragrance joins thy mind,
Some sparkle of its light
remains with thee.
Thus when thy spirit enters on its rest,
Thy lips shall say, “I too have known the best!”
Oh, come, Beloved, before my beauty fades,
Pity the sorrow of my loneliness.
I am a Rosebush that the Cypress shades,
No sunbeams find or lighten
my distress.
Daily I watch the waning of my bloom.
Ah, piteous fading of a thing
so fair!
While Fate, remorseless, weaving at her loom,
Twines furtive silver in my
twisted hair.
This noon I watched a tremulous fading rose
Rise on the wind to court
a butterfly.
“One speck of pollen, ere my petals close,
Bring me one touch of love
before I die!”
But the gay butterfly, who had the power
To grant, refused, flew far
across the dell,
And, as he fertilised a younger flower,
The petals of the rose, defrauded,
fell.
Such was my fate, thou hast not come to me,
Thine eyes are absent, and
thy voice is mute,
Though I am slim, as this Papaya tree,
With breasts out-pointing,
even as its fruit.
Beauty was mine, it brought me no caress,
My lips were red, yet there
were none to taste,
I saw my youth consume in loneliness,
And all the fervour of my
heart run waste.
While I still hoped that Thou would’st come
to me,
I and the garden waited for
their Lord.
Here He will rest, beneath this Champa tree;
Hence, all ye spike-set grasses
from the sward!
In this cool rillet I shall bathe His feet,
Come, rounded pebbles from
a smoother shore.
This is the honey that His lips will eat,
Hasten, O bees, enhance the
amber store!
Ripen, ye Custard Apples, round and fair,
Practise your songs, O Bulbuls,
on the bough,
Surely some sweeter sweetness haunts the air;
Maybe His feet draw near us,
even now!
Disperse, ye fireflies, clustered on the palm,
Love heeds no lamp, he welcomes
moonless skies:
Soon shall ye find, O stars, serene and calm,
Your sparkling rivals in my
lover’s eyes!
Closely I wove my leafy Jasmin bowers,
Hoping to hide my pleasure
and my shame,
Where the Lantana’s indecisive flowers
Vary from palest rose to orange
flame.
Ay, there were lovely hours, ’neath fern and
palm,
Almost my aching longing I
forgot.
White nights of silence, noons of golden calm,
All past, all wasted, since
Thou camest not!
Night after night the Champa trees distilled
Their cruel sweetness on the
careless air.
Noon after noon I watched the Bulbuls build,
And saw with hungry eyes the
Sun-birds pair.
None came, and none will come; no use to wait,—
Youth’s fragrance dies,
its tender light dies down.
I will arise, before it grows too late,
And seek the noisy brilliance
of the town.
These many waiting years I longed for gold,
Now must I needs console me
with alloy.
Before this beauty fades, this pulse grows cold,
I may not love, I will at
least enjoy!
Farewell, my Solitude of scented flowers,
Across whose glades the emerald
parrots gleam,
Haunt of false hope, and home of wasted hours,
I am awake, at last,—Guard
thou the dream!
Oh, youthful bearer of my palanquin,
Thy glossy hair lies loosened
on thy neck,
The “tears of labour” gem thy velvet skin,
Whose even texture knows no
other fleck.
Thy slender shoulder strains beneath my weight;
Too fair thou art for work,
sweet slave of mine.
Would that this idle breast, reversing fate,
A willing serf to love, supported
thine!
I smell the savage scent of sun-warmed fur
Close in the Jungle, musky,
hot and sweet.—
The air comes from thy shoulder, even as myrrh,
Would we were as the panthers,
free to meet.
The Temple road is steep; I grieve to see
Thy slender ankles bruised
among the clods.
Oh, my Beloved, if I might worship thee!
Beauty is greater far than
all the Gods.
I slept upon the Rice-boat
That, reef protected, lay
At anchor, where the palm-trees
Infringe upon the bay.
The windless air was heavy
With cinnamon and rose,
The midnight calm seemed waiting,
Too fateful for repose.
One joined me on the Rice-boat
With wild and waving hair,
Whose vivid words and laughter
Awoke the silent air.
Oh, beauty, bare and shining,
Fresh washen in the bay,
One well may love by moonlight
What one would not love by
day!
Above among the cordage
The night wind hardly stirred,
The lapping of the ripples
Was all the sound we heard.
Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,
And Peace controlled the sea,
The spirit’s consolation,
The senses’ ecstasy.
Though many things and mighty
Are furthered in the West,
The ancient Peace has vanished
Before To-day’s unrest.
For how among their striving,
Their gold, their lust, their
drink,
Shall men find time for dreaming
Or any space to think?
Think not I scorn the Science
That lightens human pain;
Though man’s reliance often
Is placed on it in vain.
Maybe the long endeavour,
The patience and the strife,
May some day solve the riddle,
The Mystery of Life.
Perchance I do not value
Things Western as I ought,
The trains,—that take us, whither?
The ships,—that
reach, what port?
To me it seems but chaos
Of greed and haste and rage,
The endless, aimless, motion
Of squirrels in a cage.
Here, where some ruined temple
In solitude decays,
With carven walls still hallowed
With prayers of bygone days,
Here, where the coral outcrops
Make “flowers of the
sea,”
The olden Peace yet lingers,
In hushed serenity.
Ah, silent, silver moonlight,
Whose charm impartial falls
On tanks of sacred water
And squalid city walls,
Whose mystic whiteness hallows
The lowest and the least,
To thee men owe the glamour
That draws them to the East.
And as this azure water,
Unflecked hy wave or foam,
Conceals in its tranquillity
The dreaded white shark’s
home,
So if love be illusion
I ask the dream to stay,
Content to love by moonlight
What I might not love by day.
“This is no time for saying ‘no’”
Were thy last words to me,
And yet my lips refused the kiss
They might have given thee.
How
could I know
That
thou wouldst go
To
sleep so far from me?
They took thee to the Burning-Ghat,
Oh, Lallji, my desire,
And now a faint and lonely flame
Uprises from the pyre.
The thin grey smoke in spirals drifts
Across the opal sky.
Would that I were a wife of thine,
And thus with thee could die!
How
could I know
That
thou wouldst go,
Oh,
Lallji, my desire?
The
lips I missed
The
flames have kissed
Upon
the Sandal pyre.
If one should meet me with a knife
And cut my heart in twain,
Then would he see the smoke arise
From every severed vein.
Such is the burning, inward fire,
The anguish of my pain,
For my Beloved, whose dying lips
Implored a kiss—in
vain!
How
could I know
That
thou wouldst go,
Oh,
Lallji, my desire?
Too
young thou art
To
lay thy heart
Upon
the Sandal pyre.
Thy wife awaits her coming child;
What were a child to me,
If I might take thee in these arms
And face the flames with thee?
The priests are chanting round the pyre,
At dusk they will depart
And leave to thee thy lonely rest,
To me my lonelier heart.
How
could I know
Thou
lovedst me so?
Upon
the Sandal pyre
He
lies forsaken.
The
flames have taken
My
Lallji, my desire!
His back is bent and his lips are blue,
Shivering out in the wet:
“Here’s a florin, my man, for you,
Go and get drunk and forget!”
Right in the midst of a Christian land,
Rotted with wealth and ease,
Broken and draggled they let him stand
Till his feet on the pavement
freeze.
God leaves His poor in His vicars’ care,
For He hears the church-bells
ring,
His ears are buzzing with constant prayer
And the hymns His people sing.
Can His pity picture the anguish here,
Can He see, through a London
fog,
The man who has worked “nigh seventy year”
To die the death of a dog?
No one heeds him, the crowds pass on.
Why does he want to live?
“Take this florin, and get you gone,
Go and get drunk,—and
forgive!”
Deep in the jungle vast and dim,
That knew not a white man’s
feet,
I smelt the odour of sun-warmed fur,
Musky, savage, and sweet.
Far it was from the huts of men
And the grass where Sambur
feed;
I threw a stone at a Kadapu tree
That bled as a man might bleed.
Scent of fur and colour of blood:—
And the long dead instincts
rose,
I followed the lure of my season’s mate,—
And flew, bare-fanged, at
my foes.
* * *
Pale days: and a league of laws
Made by the whims of men.
Would I were back with my furry cubs
In the dusk of a jungle den.
The sins of Youth are hardly sins,
So frank they are and free.
’T is but when Middle-age begins
We need morality.
Ah, pause and weigh this bitter truth:
That Middle-age, grown cold,
No comprehension has of Youth,
No pity for the Old.
Youth, with his half-divine mistakes,
She never can forgive,
So much she hates his charm which makes
Worth while the life we live.
She scorns Old Age, whose tolerance
And calm, well-balanced mind
(Knowing how crime is born of chance)
Can pardon all mankind.
Yet she, alas! has all the power
Of strength and place and
gold,
Man’s every act, through every hour,
Is by her laws controlled.
All things she grasps with sordid hands
And weighs in tarnished scales.
She neither feels, nor understands,
And yet her will prevails!
Cold-blooded vice and careful sin,
Gold-lust, blind selfishness,—
The shortest, cheapest way to win
Some, worse than cheap, success.
Such are her attributes and aims,
Yet meekly we obey,
While she to guide and order claims
All issues of the day.
You seek for honour, friendship, truth?
Let Middle-age be banned!
Go, for warm-hearted acts, to Youth;
To Age,—to understand!
Ah, the cool silence of the shaded hours,
The scent and colour of the jungle flowers!
Thou art one of the jungle flowers, strange and fierce
and fair,
Palest amber, perfect lines,
and scented with champa flower.
Lie back and frame thy face in the gloom of thy loosened
hair;
Sweet thou art and loved—ay,
loved—for an hour.
But thought flies far, ah, far, to another breast,
Whose whiteness breaks to
the rose of a twin pink flower,
Where wind the azure veins that my lips caressed
When Fate was gentle to me
for a too-brief hour.
There is my spirit’s home and my soul’s
abode,
The rest are only inns on the traveller’s road.
I see your red-gold hair and know
How white the
hidden skin must be,
Though sun-kissed face and fingers show
The fervour of the noon-day glow,
The keenness of
the sea.
My longing fancies ebb and flow,
Still circling
constant unto this;
My great desire (ah, whisper low)
To plant on thy forbidden snow
The rosebud of
a kiss.
The scarlet flower would spread and grow,
Your whiteness
change and flush,
Be still, my reckless heart, beat slow,
’T is but a dream that stirs thee so!)
To one transparent
blush.
Was it worth while to forego our wings
To gain these dextrous hands
?
Truly they fashion us wonderful things
As the fancy of man demands.
But—to fly! to sail through the lucid air
From crest to violet crest
Of these great grey mountains, quartz-veined and bare,
Where the white clouds gather
and rest.
Even to flutter from flower to flower,—
To skim the tops of the trees,—
In the roseate light of a sun-setting hour
To drift on a sea-going breeze.
Ay, the hands have marvellous skill
To create us curious things,—
Baubles, playthings, weapons to kill,—
But—I would we
had chosen wings!
Heart, my heart, thou hast found thy home!
From gloom and sorrow thou
hast come forth,
Thou who wast foolish, and sought to roam
’Neath the cruel stars
of the frozen North.
Thou hast returned to thy dear delights;
The golden glow of the quivering
days,
The silver silence of tropical nights,
No more to wander in alien
ways.
Here, each star is a well-loved
friend;
To me and my heart at the journey’s
end.
These are my people, and this my land,
I hear the pulse of her secret
soul.
This is the life that I understand,
Savage and simple and sane
and whole.
Washed in the light of
a clear fierce sun,—
Heart, my heart, the journey is done.
See! the painted piece of the skies,
Where the rose-hued opal of sunset lies.
Hear the passionate Koel calling
From coral trees, where the
dusk is falling.
See my people, slight limbed and tall.
The maiden’s bosom they
scorn to cover:
The breasts that shall call and enthral her lover,
Things of beauty, are free
to all.
Free to the eyes, that think no shame
That a girl should bloom like
a forest flower.
Who hold that Love is a sacred flame,—
Outward beauty a God-like
dower.
Who further regard it as no disgrace
If loveliness lessen to serve the race,
Nor point the finger of jesting scorn
At her who carries the child unborn.
Ah, my heart, but we wandered
far
From the light of the slanting fourfold
Star!
Oh, palm-leaf thatch, where the melon thrives
Beneath the shade of the tamarind tree,
Thou coverest tranquil, graceful lives,
That want so little, that knew no haste,
Nor the bitter goad of a too-full
hour;
Whose soft-eyed women are lithe and tall,
And wear no garment below the knee,
Nor veil or raiment above
the waist,
But the beautiful hair, that dowers them all,
And falls to the ground in
a scented shower.
The youths return from their swift-flowing bath,
With the swinging grace that
their height allows,
Lightly climbing the river-side path,
Their soft hair knotted above
their brows.
Elephants wade the darkening river,
Their bells, which tinkle
in minor thirds,
Faintly sweet, like passionate birds
Whose warbling wakens a sense
of pain,—
Thrill through the nerves and make them quiver,—
Heart, my heart, art thou
happy again?
Here is beauty to feast thine eyes.
Here is the land of thy long
desire.
See how the delicate spirals rise
Azure and faint from the wood-fed
fire.
Where the cartmen wearily share their food,
Ere they, by their bullocks,
lie down to rest.
Heart of mine, dost thou find it good
This wide red road by the
winds caressed?
This lone Parao, where
the fireflies light?
These tom-toms, fretting the peace of
night?
Heart, thou hast wandered and suffered much,
Death has robbed thee, and
Life betrayed,
But there is ever a solace for such
In that they are not lightly
afraid.
The strength that found them the fire to love
Finds them also the force
to forget.
Thy joy in thy dreaming lives to prove
Thou art not mortally wounded
yet.
Here, ’neath the arch of the vast, clear sky,
Where range upon range the
remote grey hills
Far in the distance recede and die,
There is no space for thy
trivial ills.
On the low horizon towards the sea,
Faint yet vivid, the lightnings
play,
The lucid air is kind as a kiss,
The falling twilight is cool
and grey.
What
has sorrow to do with thee ?
Love
was cruel? thou now art free.
Life
unkind? it has given thee this!
Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing,
Like a lonely lover sobbing
For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life’s
delight?
Plaintive sounds, restrained, enthralling,
Seeking through the twilight falling
Something lost beyond recalling, in the darkness of
the night.
Oh, my little, loved Firoza,
Come and nestle to me closer,
Where the golden-balled Mimosa makes a canopy above,
For the day, so hot and burning,
Dies away, and night, returning,
Sets thy lover’s spirit yearning for thy beauty
and thy love.
Soon will come the rosy warning
Of the bright relentless morning,
When, thy soft caresses scorning, I shall leave thee
in the shade.
All the day my work must chain me,
And its weary bonds restrain me,
For I may not re-attain thee till the light begins
to fade.
But at length the long day endeth,
As the cool of night descendeth
His last strength thy lover spendeth in returning
to thy breast,
Where beneath the Babul nightly,
While the planets shimmer whitely,
And the fire-flies glimmer brightly, thou shalt give
him love and rest.
Far away, across the distance,
The quick-throbbing drums’ persistence
Shall resound, with soft insistence, in the pauses
of delight,
Through the sequence of the hours,
While the starlight and the flowers
Consecrate this love of ours, in the Temple of the
Night.
Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.
Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.
Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty’s banquet,
calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.
My soul was linked with thine, through speech and
silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent
of sister flowers.
But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,
Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, “It is not well!
Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast not given—I
have not known!”
Somewhere, Oh, My Beloved One, the house is standing,
Waiting for thee and me; for our first caresses.
It may be a river-boat, or a wave-washed landing,
The shade of a tree in the jungle’s dim recesses,
Some
far-off mountain tent, ill-pitched and lonely,
Or
the naked vault of the purple heavens only.
But the Place is waiting there; till the Hour shall
show it,
And our footsteps, following Fate, find it and know
it.
Where we shall worship the greatest of all the Gods
in his pomp and power,—
I sometimes think that I shall not care to survive
that hour!
The rice-birds fly so white, so silver white,
The velvet rice-flats lie
so emerald green,
My heart inhales, with sorrowful delight,
The sweet and poignant sadness
of the scene.
The swollen tawny river seeks the sea,
Its hungry waters, never satisfied,
Beflecked with fallen log and torn-up tree,
Engulph the fisher-huts on
either side.
The current brought a stranger yesterday,
And laid him on the sand beneath
a palm,
His worn young face was partly torn away,
His eyes, that saw the world
no more, were calm
We could not close his eyelids, stiff with blood,—
But, oh, my brother, I had
changed with thee
For I am still tormented in the flood,
Whilst thou hast done thy
work, and reached the sea.
Fate has given me many a gift
To which men most aspire,
Lovely, precious and costly things,
But not my heart’s desire.
Many a man has a secret dream
Of where his soul would be,
Mine is a low verandah’d house
In a tope beside the sea.
Over the roof tall palms should wave,
Swaying from side to side,
Every night we should fall asleep
To the rhythm of the tide.
The dawn should be gay with song of birds,
And the stir of fluttering
wings.
Surely the joy of life is hid
In simple and tender things!
At eve the waves would shimmer with gold
In the rosy sunset rays,
Emerald velvet flats of rice
Would rest the landward gaze.
A boat must rock at the laterite steps
In a reef-protected pool,
For we should sail through the starlit night
When the winds were calm and
cool.
I am so tired of all this world,
Its folly and fret and care.
Find me a little scented home
Amongst thy loosened hair.
Give me a soft and secret place
Against thine amber breast,
Where, hidden away from all mankind,
My soul may come to rest.
Many a man has a secret dream
Of where his life might be;
Mine is a lovely, lonely place
With sunshine and the sea.
This was the tale Sher Afzul told to me,
While the spent camels bubbled
on their knees,
And ruddy camp-fires twinkled through the gloom
Sweet with the fragrance from
the Sinjib trees.
I had a friend who lay, condemned to death
In gaol for murder, wholly
innocent,
Yet caught in webs of luckless circumstance;—
Thou know’st how lies,
of good and ill intent,
Cluster like flies around a justice-court,
Wheel within wheel, revolving
screw on screw;—
But from his prison he escaped and fled,
Keeping his liberty a night
or two
Among the lonely hills, where, shackled still,
He braved a village, seeking
for a file
To loose his irons; alas! he lost his life
Through the base sweetness
of a woman’s smile.
Lovely she was, and young, who gave the youth
Kind words, and promised succor
and repose,
Till on the quilt of false security
He found exhausted sleep;
but, ere he rose,
Entered the guards, brought by her messenger.
Thus was he captured, slain,
and on her breast
Soon shone the guerdon of her treachery,
The price of blood; in gold
made manifest.
I might have killed her? Brave men have died
thus.
Revenge demanded keener punishment.
So I walked softly on those lilac hills,
Touching my rhibab
lightly as I went.
I found her fair: ’t was no unpleasant
task
In the young spring-time when
the fruit-trees flower,
To pass her door, and pause, and pass again,
Shading mine eyes against
her beauty’s power.
Warmly I wooed her, while the almond trees
Broke into fragile clouds
of rosy snow.
Her dawning passion feared her lord’s return,
Ever she pleaded softly, “Let
us go.”
But I spoke tenderly, and said, “Beloved,
Shall not thy lips give orders
to my heart?
Yet there is one small matter in these hills
Claiming attention ere I can
depart.
“Let us not waste these days; thine absent lord
Cannot return, thou know’st,
before the snow
Has melted, and the almond fruits appear.”
This time she answered, “Naught
but thee I know!”
I too was young; I could have loved her well
When her soft eyes across
the twilight burned;
But suddenly, around her amber neck,
The golden beads would sparkle
as she turned.
And I remembered; swift mine eyelids fell
To hide the hate that festered
in my soul,
Ever more deeply, with the rising fear
That Love might wrench Revenge
from my control.
But when at last she, acquiescent, lay
In the sweet-scented shadow
of the firs,
Lovely and broken, granting—asking—all,
It was his eyes I met:
not hers—not hers!
* * *
Three months I waited: all the village talked,
And ever anxiously she urged
our flight.
Yet still I lingered, till her beauty paled,
And wearily she came to me
at night.
Then, seeing Love, subservient to Revenge,
Had well achieved his own
creative end,
And in his work must soon be manifest,
Compassing thus my duty to
my friend,
One tranquil, sultry night I rode away
Till far behind the purple
hills were dim,
Exulting in my spirit, “Thus I leave
Her to her fate, and my revenge
to him!”
Swiftly he struck, her lord; the body lay
With hacked-off breasts, dishonoured,
in the Pass.
Months later, riding lonely through the gorge,
I saw it still, among the
long-grown grass.
It was well done; my soul is satisfied.
Friendship is sweet, and Love
is sweeter still,
But Vengeance has a savour all its own—
A strange delight—well
known to those who kill.
Such was the story Afzul told to me,
While wood-fires crackled
in the evening breeze,
And blows on hammered tent-pegs stirred the air
Sweet with the fragrance from
the Sinjib trees.
Tent-like, above, up-held by jagged peaks,
The heavy purple of the tranquil
sky
Shed its oft-broken promises of peace,
While twinkling stars bemocked
the worn-out lie!
Nay, not to-night;—the slow, sad rain is
falling
Sorrowful tears, beneath a
grieving sky,
Far off a famished jackal, faintly calling,
Renders the dusk more lonely
with its cry.
The mighty river rushes, sobbing, seawards,
The shadows shelter faint
mysterious fears,
I turn mine eyes for consolation theewards,
And find thy lashes tremulous
with tears.
If some new soul, asearch for incarnation,
Should, through our kisses,
enter Life again,
It would inherit all our desolation,
All the soft sorrow of the
slanting rain.
When thou desirest Love’s supreme surrender,
Come while the morning revels
in the light,
Bulbuls around us, passionately tender,
Singing among the roses red
and white.
Thus, if it be my sweet and sacred duty,
Subservient to the Gods’
divine decree,
To give the world again thy vivid beauty,
I should transmit it with
my joy in thee.
I could not if I would, Beloved, deceive thee.
Wouldst thou not feel at once
a feigned caress?
Yet, do not rise, I would not have thee leave me,
My soul needs thine to share
its loneliness.
Let the dim starlight, when the low clouds sunder,
Silver the perfect outline
of thy face.
Such faces had the saints; I only wonder
That thine has sought my heart
for resting-place.
There are no days for me any more, for the dawn is
dark with tears,
There is no rest for me any more, for the night is
thick with fears.
There are no flowers nor any fruit, for the sorrowful
locusts came,
And the garden is but a memory, the vineyard only
a name.
There is no light in the empty sky, no sail upon the
sea,
Birds are yet on their nests perchance, but they sing
no more to me.
Past—vanished—faded away—all
the joys that were.
My youth died down in a swift decline when they married
her to despair.
“My lord, the crowd in the Audience Hall; how
long wilt thou have them wait?”
I have given my father’s younger son the guidance
of the State.
“The steeds are saddled, the Captains call for
the orders of the day.”
Tell them that I shall ride no more to the hunting
or the fray.
“Sweet the scent of the Moghra flowers;”
Brother, it may be so.
“The young, flushed spring is with us again.”
Is it? I did not know.
“The Zamorin’s daughter draweth near,
on slender golden feet;”
Oh, a curse upon all sweet things say I, to whom they
are no more sweet!
Dost think that a man as sick as I can compass a woman’s
ease?
That the sons of a man who is like to me could ever
find rest or peace?
Tell them to marry them where they will, if their
longing be so sore,
Such are the things that all men seek, but I shall
seek no more.
All my muscles are fallen in, and the blood deserts
my veins,
Every fibre and bone of me is waxen full of pains,
The iron feet of mine enemy’s curse are heavy
upon my head,
Look at me and judge for thyself, thou seest I am
but dead.
“Then, who is it, Prince, who has done this
thing, has sown such a bitter seed,
That we hale him forth to the Market-place, bind him
and let him bleed,
That the flesh may shudder and wince and writhe, reddening
’neath the rod.”
Love is the evil-doer, alas! and how shalt thou scourge
a God?
Dear little Hut by the rice-fields circled,
That cocoa-nuts shade above.
I hear the voices of children singing,
And that means love.
When shall the traveller’s march be over,
When shall his wandering cease?
This little homestead is bare and simple,
And that means peace.
Nay! to the road I am not unfaithful;
In tents let my dwelling be!
I am not longing for Peace or Passion
From any one else but thee,
My
Krishna,
Any
one else but thee!
My paramour was loneliness
And lying by the sea,
Soft songs of sorrow and distress
He did beget in me.
Later another lover came
More meet for my desire,
“Radiant Beauty” was his name;
His sons had wings of fire!
The Rice was under water, and the land was scourged
with rain,
The nights were desolation, and the day was born in
pain.
Ah, the famine and the fever and the cruel, swollen
streams,
I had died, except for Krishna, who consoled me—in
my dreams!
The Burning-Ghats were smoking, and the jewels melted
down,
The Temples lay deserted, for the people left the
town.
Yet I was more than happy, though passing strange
it seems,
For I spent my nights with Krishna, who loved me—in
my dreams!
“Surface Rights”
Drifting, drifting down the River,
Tawny current and foam-flecked
tide,
Sorrowful songs of lonely boatmen,
Mournful forests on either
side.
Thine are the outcrops’ glittering blocks,
The quartz where the rich
pyrites gleam,
The golden treasure of unhewn rocks
And the loose gold in the
stream.
But,—the dim vast forests along the shore,
That whisper wonderful things
o’ nights,—
These are things that I value more,
My beautiful “surface
rights.”
Drifting, drifting down the River,—
Stars a-tremble about the
sky—
Ah, my lover, my heart is breaking,
Breaking, breaking, I know
not why.
Why is Love such a sorrowful thing?
This I never could understand;
Pain and passion are linked together,
Ever I find them hand in hand.
Loose thy hair in its soft profusion,
Let thy lashes caress thy
cheek,—
These are the things that express thy spirit,
What is the need to explain
or speak?
Drifting, drifting along the River,
Under the light of a wan low
moon,
Steady, the paddles; Boatmen, steady,—
Why should we reach the sea
so soon?
See where the low spit cuts the water,
What is that misty wavering
light?
Only the pale datura flowers
Blossoming through the silent
night.
What is the fragrance in thy tresses?
’T is the scent of the
champa’s breath;
The meaning of champa bloom is passion—
And of datura—death!
Sweet are thy ways and thy strange caresses,
That sear as flame, and exult
as wine.
But I care only for that wild moment
When my soul arises and reaches
thine.
Wistful voices of wild birds calling—
Far, faint lightning towards
the West,—
Twinkling lights of a Tyah homestead,—
Ruddy glow on a girl’s
bare breast—
Drifting boats on a mournful River,
Shifting thoughts in a dreaming
mind,—
We two, seeking the Sea, together,—
When we reach it,—what
shall we find?
(While the procession passed at Ramesram)
Nearer and nearer cometh the car
Where the Golden Goddess towers,
Sweeter and sweeter grows the air
From a thousand trampled flowers.
We two rest in the Temple shade
Safe from the pilgrim flood,
This path of the Gods in olden days
Ran royally red with blood.
Louder and louder and louder yet
Throbs the sorrowful drum—
That is the tortured world’s despair,
Never a moment dumb.
Shriller and shriller shriek the flutes,
Nature’s passionate
need—
Paler and paler grow my lips,
And still thou bid’st
them bleed.
Deeper and deeper and deeper still,
Never a pause for pain—
Darker and darker falls the night
That golden torches stain.
Closer, ah! closer, and still more close,
Till thy soul reach my soul—
Further, further, out on the tide
From the shores of self-control.
Glowing, glowing, to whitest heat,
Thy feverish passions burn,
Fiercer and fiercer, cruelly fierce,
To thee my senses yearn.
Fainter and fainter runs my blood
With desperate fight for breath—
This, my Beloved, thou sayest is Love,
Or I should have deemed it
Death!
Ah, my lord, are the tidings true,
That thy mother’s jewels are shapen anew?
I hear that a bride has chosen been,
The stars consulted, the parents seen.
Had I been childless, had never there smiled
The brilliant eyes from the face of a child,
Then at least I had understood
This thing they tell me thou findest good.
But I have been down to the River of Death,
With painful footsteps and shuddering breath,
Seven times; thou hast daughters three,
And four young sons who are fair as thee.
I am not unlovely, over my head
Not twenty summers as yet have sped.
’T is eleven years since my opening life
Was given to thee by my father’s wife.
Ah, those days—They were lovely to me,
When little and shy I waited for thee.
Till I locked my arms round my lover above,
A child in form but a woman in love.
And I bore thy sons, as a woman should,
Year by year, as is meet and good.
Thy mother was ever content with me—
And Oh, Beloved, I worshipped thee!
And now it’s over; alas, my lord,
Better I felt thy sharpest sword.
I hear she is youthful and fair as I
When I came to thee in the days gone by.
Her breasts are firmer; this bosom slips
Somewhat, weighted by children’s lips.
But they were thy children. Oh, lord my king,
Ah, why hast thy heart devised this thing ?
I am not as the women of this thy land,
Meek and timid, broken to hand.
From the distant North I was given to thee,
Whose daughters are passionate, fierce and free,
I could not dwell by a rival’s side,
I seek a bridegroom, as thou a bride.
The night she yieldeth her youth to thee,
Death shall take his pleasure in me.
I arise and go down to the River, and currents that
come from the sea,
Still fresh with the salt of the ocean, are lovely
and precious to me,
The waters are silver and silent, except where the
kingfisher dips,
Or the ripples wash off from my shoulder the reddening
stain of thy lips.
Two things make my joy at this moment: thy gold-coloured
beauty by night,
And the delicate charm of the River, all pale in the
day-breaking light,
So cool are the waters’ caresses. Ah, which
is the lovelier,—this?
Or the fire that it kindles at midnight, beneath the
soft glow of thy kiss?
Ah, Love has a mighty dominion, he forges with passionate
breath
The links which stretch out to the Future, with forces
of life and of death,
But great is the charm of the River, so soft is the
sigh of the reeds,
They give me, long sleepless from passion, the peace
that my weariness needs.
I float on the breast of my River, and startle the
birds on the edge,
To land on a newly found island, a boat that is caught
in the sedge,
The rays of the sun are still level, not yet has the
heat of the day
Deflowered the mists of the morning, that linger in
delicate grey.
What land was his dwelling whose fancy first gave
unto Paradise birth?
He never had swum in my River, or else he had fixed
it on earth!
Oh, grace of the palm-tree reflections, Oh, sense
of the wind from the sea!
Oh, divine and serene exultation of one who is lonely
and free!
Ah, delicate breezes of daybreak, so scentless, refreshing
and free!
And yet—had my midnight been lonely you
had been less lovely to me.
This coolness comes laden with solace, because I am
hot from the fire,
As often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.
Gautama came forth from his Palace; he felt the night wind on his face, He loathed, as he left, the embraces, the softness and scent of the place, But, ah, if his night had been loveless, with no one to solace his need, He never had written that sermon which men so devotedly read.
Ah, River, thy gentle persuasion! I doubt if
I seek any more
The beauty that hurts me and holds me beneath the
low roof on the shore.
I loved thee, ay, loved—for a season, but
thou, was it love or desire,
The glow of the Sun in his glory, or only the heat
of a fire?
I think not that thou wilt regret me, for thou art
too joyous and fair,
So many are keen to caress thee, thy passionate midnights
to share.
Thou wilt not have time to remember, before a new
love-knot is tied,
The stranger who loved thee and left thee, who drifted
away on the tide.
Two things I have found that are lovely, though most
things are sullen and grey;
One: Peace—but what mortal has found
him; and Passion—but when would he stay?
So I shall return to my River, and floating at ease
on its breast,
Shall find, what Love never has given—a
sense of most infinite rest.
When the years have gone by and departed, what thought
shall I keep of this land?
A curl of thy waist-reaching-tresses? a flower received
from thy hand?
Nay, if I can fathom the future, I fancy my relic
will be
Some shell, my beloved one, the River, has stol’n
from the store of the sea.
Listen, Beloved, the Casurinas quiver,
Each tassel prays the wind
to set it free,
Hark to the frantic sobbing of the river,
Wild to attain extinction
in the sea.
All Nature blindly struggles to dissolve
In other forms and forces, thus to solve
The painful riddle of identity.
Ah, that my soul might lose itself in thee!
Yet, my Beloved One, wherefore seek I union,
Since there is no such thing
in all the world,—
Are not our spirits linked in close communion,—
And on my lips thy clinging lips
are curled?
Thy tender arms are round my shoulders thrown,
I hear thy heart more loudly than my own,
And yet, to my despair, I know thee far,
As in the stellar darkness, star from star.
Even in times when love with bounteous measure
A simultaneous joy on us has
shed,
In the last moment of delirious pleasure,
Ere the sense fail, or any
force be fled,
My rapture has been even as a wall,
Shutting out any thought of thee at all!
My being, by its own delight possessed,
Forgot that it was sleeping on thy breast.
Ay, from his birth each man is vowed and given
To a vast loneliness, ungauged,
unspanned,
Whether by pain and woe his soul be riven,
Or all fair pleasures clustered
’neath his hand.
His gain by day, his ecstasy by night,—
His force, his folly, fierce or faint delight,—
Suffering or sorrow, fortune, feud, or care,—
Whate’er he find or feel,—he may
not share.
Lonely we join the world, and we depart
Even as lonely, having lived
alone,
The breast that feeds us, the beloved one’s
heart,
The lips we kiss,—or
curse—alike unknown.
Ay, even these lips of thine, so often kissed,
What certitude have I that they exist?
Alas, it is the truth, though harsh it seems,
I have been loved as sweetly in my dreams.
Therefore if I should seem too fiercely fond,
Too swift to love, too eager
to attain,
Forgive the fervour that would forge beyond
The limits set to mortal joy
and pain.
Knowing the soul’s unmeasured loneliness,
My passion must be mingled with distress,
As I, despairing, struggle to draw near
What is as unattainable as dear.
Thirst may be quenched at any kindly river,
Rest may be found ’neath
any arching tree.
No sleep allures, no draughts of love deliver
My spirit from its aching
need of thee.
Thy sweet assentiveness to my demands,
All the caressive touches of thy hands,—
These soft cool hands, with fingers tipped with fire,—
They can do nothing to assuage desire.
Sometimes I think my longing soul remembers
A previous love to which it
aims and strives,
As if this fire of ours were but the embers
Of some wild flame burnt out
in former lives.
Perchance in earlier days I did attain
That which I seek for now so all in vain,
Maybe my soul with thine was fused and wed
In some great night, long since dissolved and dead.
We may progress; but who shall answer clearly
The riddle of the endless
change of things.
Perchance in other days men loved more dearly,
Or Love himself had wider
ways and wings,
Maybe we gave ourselves with less control,
Or simpler living left more free the soul,
So that with ease the flesh aside was flung,—
Or was it merely that Mankind was young?
Or has my spirit a divine prevision
Of vast vague passions stored
in days to be,
When some strong souls shall conquer their division
And two shall be as one, eternally?
Finding at last upon each other’s breast,
Unutterable calm and infinite rest,
While love shall burn with such intense a glow
That both shall die, and neither heed or know.
Why do I question thus, and wake confusion
In the soft thought that lights
thy perfect face,
Ah, shed once more thy perfumed hair’s profusion,
Open thine arms and make my
resting place.
Lay thy red lips on mine as heretofore,
Grant me the treasure of thy beauty’s store,
Stifle all thought in one imperious kiss,—
What shall I ask for more than this,—and
this?
Oh, unforgotten and only lover,
Many years have swept us apart,
But none of the long dividing seasons
Slay your memory in my heart.
In the clash and clamour of things unlovely
My thoughts drift back to
the times that were,
When I, possessing thy pale perfection,
Kissed the eyes and caressed
the hair.
Other passions and loves have drifted
Over this wandering, restless
soul,
Rudderless, chartless, floating always
With some new current of chance
control.
But thine image is clear in the whirling waters—
Ah, forgive—that
I drag it there,
For it is so part of my very being
That where I wander it too
must fare.
Ah, I have given thee strange companions,
To thee—so slender
and chaste and cool—
But a white star loses no glimmer of beauty
In all the mud of a miry pool
That holds the grace of its white reflection;
Nothing could fleck thee,
nothing could stain,
Thou hast made a home for thy delicate beauty
Where all things peaceful
and lovely reign.
Doubtless the night that my soul remembers
Was a sin to thee, and thine
only one.
Thou thinkest of it, if thou thinkest ever,
As a crime committed, a deed
ill done.
But for me, the broken, the desert-dweller,
Following Life through its
underways,—
I know if those midnights thou hadst not granted
I had not lived through these
after days.
And that had been well for me; all would say so,
What have I done since I parted
from thee?
But things that are wasted, and full of ruin,
All unworthy, even of me.
Yet, it was to me that the gift was given,
No greater joy have the Gods
above,—
That night of nights when my only lover,
Though all reluctant, granted
me love.
For thy beauty was mine, and my spirit knows it,
Never, ah, never my heart
forgets,
One thing fixed, in the torrent of changing,
Faults and follies and fierce
regrets.
Thine eyes and thy hair, that were lovely symbols
Of that white soul that their
grace enshrined,
They are part of me and my life for ever,
In every fibre and cell entwined.
Men might argue that having known thee
I had grown faithful and pure
as thee,
Had turned at the touch of thy grace and glory
From the average pathways
trodden by me.
Hadst thou been kinder or I been stronger
It may be even these things
had been—
But one thing is clear to my soul for ever,
I owe my owning of thee to
sin.
Had I been colder I had not reached thee,
Besmirched the ermine, beflecked
the snow—
It was only sheer and desperate passion
That won thy beauty in years
ago.
And not for the highest virtues in Heaven,
The utmost grace that the
soul can name,
Would I resign what the sin has brought me,
Which I hold glory, and thou—thy
shame.
I talk of sin in the usual fashion,
But God knows what is a sin
to me—
We love more fiercely or love more faintly—
But I doubt if it matters
how these things be.
The best and the worst of us all sink under—
What I held passion and thou
held’st lust—
What name will it find in a few more seasons,
When we both dissolve in an
equal dust?
If a God there be, and a God seems needed
To make the beauty of things
like thee,
He doubtless also, some careless moment,
Mixed the forces that fashioned
me.
Also He, for His own good reason—
Though I care little how these
things are—
Gave me thee, in those few brief midnights,
And that one solace He never
can mar.
Ah me, the stars of such varying heavens
Have watched me, under such
alien skies,
Lay thy beauty naked before me
To soothe and solace my world-worn
eyes.
For one good gift to me has been given—
A memory accurate, clear and
keen,
That holds the vision, perfect for ever
In charm and glory, of things
once seen.
So I hold thee there, and my fancy wanders
To each known beauty and blue-veined
place,
I know how each separate eyelash trembles,
And every shadow that sweeps
thy face.
And this is a joy of which none can rob me,
This is a pleasure that none
can mar—
As sweet as thou wert, in that long past midnight,
Even as lovely my memories
are.
Ah, unforgotten and only lover,
If ever I drift across thy
thought,
As even a vision unloved, unlovely,
May cross the fancy, uncalled,
unsought,
When the years that pass thee have shown, in passing,
That my love, in its strength
at least, was rare—
Wilt thou not think—ah, hope of the hopeless—
E’en as thou wouldst
not, thou wilt not—care!
Who says I wrong thee, my half-opened rose?
Little he knows of thee or me, or love.—
I am so tender of thy fragile youth,
Yea, in my hours of wildest ecstasy,
Keeping close-bitted each careering sense.
Only I give mine eyes unmeasured law
To feed them where they will, and their delight
Was curbed at first, until thy tender shame
Died in the bearing of thy first born joy.
I am not cruel, my half-opened rose,
Though in the sunshine of my own desire
I have uncurled thy petals to the light
And fed the tendrils of thy dawning sense
With delicate caresses, till they leave
Thee tremulous with the newness of thy joy,
Sharing thy lover’s fire with innocent flame.
Others will wrong thee, that I well foresee,
Being a man, knowing my fellow men,
And they who, knowing, would blame my love of thee
Contentedly will see thy beauty given,
When the world judges thou art ripe to wed,—
To the rough rites of marriage, to the pain
And grievous weariness of child-getting,—
This shall be right and licit in their eyes—
But it would break my heart, were I alive.
Yea, this will be; many will doubtless share
The rose whose bud has been my one delight,
And I shall not be there to shield my flower.
Yet, I have taught thee of the ways of men,
Much I have learnt in cities and in courts,
Winnowed to suit thy tender brain,—is thine,
Thus Life shall find thee, not all unprepared
To face its callous, subtle cruelties.
Still,—it will profit little; I discern
Thou art of those whose love will prove their curse,
—Thou sayest thou lovest me, to thy delight?
Nay, little one, it is not love as yet.
Dear as thou art, and lovely, thou canst not love,
Thy later loves shall show the truth of this.
Ay, by some subtle signs I know full well
That thou art capable of that great love
Whose glory has the light of unknown heavens,
And makes hot Hell for those who harbour it.
Naught I can say could save thee from thyself,
Ah, were I half my age! Yet even that,
Had been too old for thy sweet thirteenth year.
Still, thou art happy now, and glad thine eyes,
When, as the lilac evening gains the sky,
I lay thee, ’twixt thine own soft hair and me,
Kissing thy senses into soft delight.
Ruffling the petals of my half-closed rose
With tender touches, and perpetual care
That no wild moment of mine own delight
Deep in the flower’s heart,—should
set the fruit.
Ah, in the days to come, it well may be,
When thou shalt see thy beauty stained and torn
By the harsh sequel of some future love,
Thy thoughts shall stray to thy first lover’s
grave,
And thou shalt murmur, “Ay, but that was love.
They were most wrong who said he did me wrong.
Only I was too young to understand.”
Ah, Wind, I have always loved thee
Since those far off nights
When I lay beneath the vines
A prey to strange delights,
For among my tresses
Thy soft caresses
Were sweet as a lover’s
to me.
Later thou grewest more wanton, or I more shy,
And after the bath I drew my garments close,
Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair
When thou camest fresh with the scent of some ruffled
rose.
Ah, Wind, thou hast lain with the Desert,
I know her savour well,
And the spices wherewith she scents her
breasts—
She who has known such countless lovers
Yet rarely borne a city among her sands—
Thou comest as one from a
night of love,
Thy
breath is broken and hard,—
Bringing echoes of lonely
things,
Vast
and cruel, that the soft and golden sands
Buried
beneath thin ripples so long ago.
Ah, Wind, thou hast given me lovely things,
The
scent of a thousand flowers,
And the heavy perfume of pollen-laden fields,
Strange snatches of wild song from the heart of the
dark Bazaar
That thrilled to my very core,
Till I threw the sheet aside and rose to follow,—
But whither, or what?
Also, Wind, thou broughtest the breath of the sea,
The sound of its myriad waves.
And in nights when I lay on the lonely sands
Stretching mine arms to thee,
Thou gavest me something—faint
and vast and sweet,
Something ineffable, wistful, from far away,
Elsewhere—Beyond—
And thou wast kind to me in my times of love,
Cooling
my lips
That my lover wore away,
While, wafting the scent from his divided hair,
Thou show’dst the stars
between
Far away, and eclipsed by his burning eyes
Even
the stars.
And now I almost foresee the place and the hour
When I shall open my dying
lips to thee
And
receive a last cool kiss.
Afterwards, Wind, since I have always loved thee,—
Whirl my dust to the scented
heart of a moghra flower,
His
flower, but, ah, thou knowest,—
So
often thy kisses have mingled with his and mine.