India's Love Lyrics

   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.

   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.

   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!

   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.

   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 river glistened and glinted through the sedge.
   Green parrots flew above her and, as the daylight died,
   Her young arms drew her lover more closely to her side.

   Oh days so warm and golden! oh nights so cool and still!
   When Love would not be holden, and Pleasure had his will.
   Days, when in after leisure, content to rest we lay,
   Nights, when her lips' soft pressure drained all my life away.

   And while we sat together, 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, 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!

   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!

   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.

   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!

   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?

   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.

   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.

   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!

   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!"

   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.

   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!"

               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.

   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!

   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 life 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.

   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.

   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 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.

   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.