Hira Singhs 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 […]
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 […]
From Behind The Lattice
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 […]
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 […]
Feroke
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. […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
Early Love
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 […]
Disappointment
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 […]
Deserted Gipsys 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 […]
Dedication
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 […]
Dedication To Malcolm 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 […]
Camp Followers 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 […]
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 […]
Au Salon
A sky intensely blue, a low, white wall Against it heaps of up-blown yellow sand, A sleeping figure, holding in her hand Some scarlet cactus blossom; that was all. And yet so mellowly the sunbeams fell Upon the sunburnt limbs, such subtle play Of rosy light and tender shadow lay Upon the upturned face, […]
Atavism
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. […]
Ashore
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 […]
Among The Sandhills
Lie still, Beloved, I also see the day Shoot his white arrows through the trembling sky, But what is dawn to us, who cast away All sense of time that mars our ecstasy ? The scented orange bushes check the breeze Granting in tribute many waxen stars, And aromatic Eucalyptus trees Defy the sun […]
Among The Rice Fields
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
What Of The Night
To you, who look below, Where little candles glow – Who listen in a narrow street, Confused with noise of passing feet – To you ’tis wild and dark; No light, no guide, no ark, For travellers lost on moor and lea, And ship-wrecked mariners at sea. But they who stand apart, With hushed […]
Vows
Nay, ask me not. I would not dare pretend To constant passion and a life-long trust. They will desert thee, if indeed they must. How can we guess what Destiny will send- Smiles of fair fortune, or black storms to rend What even now is shaken by a gust? The fire will burn, or […]
To Morrow
The lighthouse shines across the sea; The homing fieldfares sing for glee: “Behold the shore!” Alas for shattered wing and breast! The lighthouse breakers make their nest, And hedges bloom for them no more- No more. In their old church the lovers stand. His wedding ring is on her hand, All partings o’er. Alas […]
The Winged Mariners
Through the wild night, the silence and the dark, Through league on league of the uncharted sky, Lonelier than dove of fable from its ark, The fieldfares fly. Mate with his tiny mate, and younglings frail, That only knew the crevice of their tree Until, in faith stupendous, they set sail Across the sea. […]
The Watchman
Through jewelled windows in the walls The tender daylight smiles; Majestic music swells and falls Adown the stately aisles; Shadows of carven roof and rood, Of stony saints and angels, brood Above the altar-glow; They cannot dim the shining face Of one conspicuous in his place Amid the forms below. He that was once […]
The Virgin Martyr
Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather, But a captive woman, made for love – no mate, no nest has she. In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together, And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see: Nature’s sacramental […]
The Vain Question
Why should we court the storms that rave and rend, Safe at our household hearth? Why, starved and naked, without home or friend, Unknowing whence we came or where we wend, Follow from no beginning to no end An uncrowned martyr’s path? Is it worth while to waste our all in vain? To seek, […]
The Soldiers Grave
‘Twas long ago, in the summer-time, On a day as sad as this, That I laid my babe in its father’s arms, And he gave it his farewell kiss; When the army sail’d from the English shores In a mist of sun and rain, To the vine-clad hills and citadels And the olive groves […]
The Silence In The Church
(No. 1.) O Holy Spirit, we entreat, Send down Thy quickening fire; Let Thine own presence, dread and sweet, These waiting hearts in spire. In every thought and word and deed, Breathe Thou the breath of life- The fulness of the grace they need For their appointed strife. Help them to hold, in clasp […]
The Season
And must I wear a silken life, Hemmed in by city walls? And must I give my garden up For theatres and balls? Nay, though the cage be made of gold, ‘Tis better to be free; The green of the green meadows, love, Is quite enough for me. I’d rather ramble through the lanes […]
The Resting Place
“Because I live, ye shall live also.” Calmly the Paschal moonlight now is sleeping On mossy hillock and on headstone grey, Where still our Mother holds in faithful keeping Such as, while living, in her dear arms lay. Ah! loving and beloved, we know ye rest, E’en in the grave, upon her hallow’d breast. […]
The Old Manor House
An old house, crumbling half away, all barnacled and lichen-grown, Of saddest, mellowest, softest grey,-with a grand history of its own- Grand with the work and strife and tears of more than half a thousand years. Such delicate, tender, russet tones of colour on its gables slept, With streaks of gold betwixt the stones, […]
The Old Maids Story
Ay, many and many a year’s gone by, Since the dawn of that day in spring, When we met in the pine-woods, Harry and I, And he gave me this golden ring. I had lovers in plenty, of high degree, Who wooed in my father’s hall; But none were so noble and brave as […]
The Night
Watchman, what of the night? See you a streak of light? Whither, O Captain of the quest, The course we steer for Port of Rest? How shall he answer-he Who never put to sea? Within his tabernacle wall He cannot even hear us call. Behind the jealous door That he must pass no more, […]
The Mob
Why stand dumbfounded and aghast, As at invading armies sweeping by, Surprised by haggard face and threatening cry, The storm unheralded, that rose so fast? Men, with gaunt wives and hungry children, cast Upon the wintry streets to thieve or die, They cannot always suffer silently; Patience gives out. The poor worm turns at […]
The Midnight Mass
An Incident of the French Revolution. THE light lay trembling in a silver bar Along the western borders of the sky; From out the shadowy dome a little star Stole forth to keep its patient watch on high; And night came down, with solemn, soft embrace, On storied Brittany. Another night lay over all […]
The Magic Wand
As an April garden Breathes the scent of rain- Rain that calls her treasures Back to life again- So my spirit quickens to the opening strain. In its sheath of darkness Fancy’s folded wing Thrills and stirs and quivers To another spring, When the bow is drawn across the trembling string. In their grave […]