Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the
year,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.
As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
And men who had fought with O’Neil for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.
For she who had held him so long could not hold him—
Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled
him—
But watched the twin Terror—the head turned
to head—
The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage
Red—
The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew
to
Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.
But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing,
And muttered aloud, “So you kept that jade earring!”
Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend,
“Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the
end.” * * * * *
The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:—
“He took what I said in this horrible fashion,
“I’ll write to Harendra!” With
language unsainted The Captain came back to the Bride.
. .who had fainted. * * * * *
And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie
And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,
A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin—
She’s always about on the Mall of a mornin’—
And you’ll see, if her right shoulder-strap
is displaced,
This: Gules upon argent, a Boh’s Head,
erased!
O woe is me for the merry life
I led beyond the Bar,
And a treble woe for my winsome wife
That weeps at Shalimar.
They have taken away my long jezail,
My shield and sabre fine,
And heaved me into the Central jail
For lifting of the kine.
The steer may low within the byre,
The Jat may tend his grain,
But there’ll be neither loot nor fire
Till I come back again.
And God have mercy on the Jat
When once my fetters fall,
And Heaven defend the farmer’s hut
When I am loosed from thrall.
It’s woe to bend the stubborn back
Above the grinching quern,
It’s woe to hear the leg-bar clack
And jingle when I turn!
But for the sorrow and the shame,
The brand on me and mine,
I’ll pay you back in leaping flame
And loss of the butchered kine.
For every cow I spared before
In charity set free,
If I may reach my hold once more
I’ll reive an honest three.
For every time I raised the low
That scared the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
I’ll light the land with twain!
Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,
Young Sahib with the yellow hair—
Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,
Fat herds below Bonair!
The one I’ll shoot at twilight-tide,
At dawn I’ll drive the other;
The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,
The white man for his brother.
