India's Love Lyrics
How much I loved that way you had
Of smiling most, when very sad,
A smile which carried tender hints
Of delicate tints
And warbling birds,
Of sun and spring,
And yet, more than all other thing,
Of Weariness beyond all Words!
None other ever smiled that way,
None that I know,--
The essence of all Gaiety lay,
Of all mad mirth that men may know,
In that sad smile, serene and slow,
That on your lips was wont to play.
It needed many delicate lines
And subtle curves and roseate tints
To make that weary radiant smile;
It flickered, as beneath the vines
The sunshine through green shadow glints
On the pale path that lies below,
Flickered and flashed, and died away,
But the strange thoughts it woke meanwhile
Were wont to stay.
Thoughts of Strange Things you used to know
In dim, dead lives, lived long ago,
Some madly mirthful Merriment
Whose lingering light is yet unspent,--
Some unimaginable Woe,--
Your strange, sad smile forgets these not,
Though you, yourself, long since, forgot!
Third Song, written during Fever
To-night the clouds hang very low,
They take the Hill-tops to their breast,
And lay their arms about the fields.
The wind that fans me lying low,
Restless with great desire for rest,
No cooling touch of freshness yields.
I, sleepless through the stifling heat,
Watch the pale Lightning's constant glow
Between the wide set open doors.
I lie and long amidst the heat,--
The fever that my senses know,
For that cool slenderness of yours.
So delicate and cool you are!
A roseleaf that has lain in snow,
A snowflake tinged with sunset fire.
You do not know, so young you are,
How Fever fans the senses' glow
To uncontrollable desire!
And fills the spaces of the night
With furious and frantic thought,
One would not dare to think by day.
Ah, if you came to me to-night
These visions would be turned to naught,
These hateful dreams be held at bay!
But you are far, and Loneliness
My only lover through the night;
And not for any word or prayer
Would you console my loneliness
Or lend yourself, serene and slight,
And the cool clusters of your hair.
All through the night I long for you,
As shipwrecked men in tropics yearn
For the fresh flow of streams and springs.
My fevered fancies follow you
As dying men in deserts turn
Their thoughts to clear and chilly things.
Such dreams are mine, and such my thirst,
Unceasing and unsatisfied,
Until the night is burnt away
Among these dreams and fevered thirst,
And, through the open doorways, glide
The white feet of the coming day.
The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks
This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.
Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
How hard for me to be harsh to him
With his soft, appealing eyes.
His hair is ruffled upon the stone
And the slender wrists are bound,
So young! and yet he has overthrown
His scores on the battle ground.
Would I were only a slave to-day,
To whom it were right and meet
To wash the stains of the War away,
The dust from the weary feet.
Were I but one of my serving girls
To solace his pain to rest!
Shake out the sand from the soft loose curls,
And hold him against my breast!
Have we such beauty around our Throne?
Such lithe and delicate strength?
Would God that I were the senseless stone
To support his slender length!
I hate those wounds that trouble my sight,
Unknown! how I wish you lay,
Alone in my silken tent to-night
While I charmed the pain away.
I would lay you down on the Royal bed,
I would bathe your wounds with wine,
And setting your feet against my head
Dream you were lover of mine.
My Crown is heavy upon my hair,
The Jewels weigh on my breast,
All I would leave, with delight, to share
Your pale and passionate rest!
But hands grow restless about their swords,
Lips murmur below their breath,
"The Queen is silent too long!" "My Lords,
--Take him away to death!"
Protest: By Zahir-u-Din
Alas! alas! this wasted Night
With all its Jasmin-scented air,
Its thousand stars, serenely bright!
I lie alone, and long for you,
Long for your Champa-scented hair,
Your tranquil eyes of twilight hue;
Long for the close-curved, delicate lips
--Their sinuous sweetness laid on mine--
Here, where the slender fountain drips,
Here, where the yellow roses glow,
Pale in the tender silver shine
The stars across the garden throw.
Alas! alas! poor passionate Youth!
Why must we spend these lonely nights?
The poets hardly speak the truth,--
Despite their praiseful litany,
His season is not all delights
Nor every night an ecstasy!
The very power and passion that make--
_Might_ make--his days one golden dream,
How he must suffer for their sake!
Till, in their fierce and futile rage,
The baffled senses almost deem
They might be happier in old age.
Age that can find red roses sweet,
And yet not crave a rose-red mouth;
Hear Bulbuls, with no wish that feet
Of sweeter singers went his way;
Inhale warm breezes from the South,
Yet never fed his fancy stray.
From some near Village I can hear
The cadenced throbbing of a drum,
Now softly distant, now more near;
And in an almost human fashion,
It, plaintive, wistful, seems to come
Laden with sighs of fitful passion,
To mock me, lying here alone
Among the thousand useless flowers
Upon the fountain's border-stone--
Cold stone, that chills me as I lie
Counting the slowly passing hours
By the white spangles in the sky.
Some feast the Tom-toms celebrate,
Where, close together, side by side,
Gay in their gauze and tinsel state
With lips serene and downcast eyes,
Sit the young bridegroom and his bride,
While round them songs and laughter rise.
They are together; Why are we
So hopelessly, so far apart?
Oh, I implore you, come to me!
Come to me, Solace of mine eyes!
Come Consolation of my heart!
Light of my senses! What replies?
A little, languid, mocking breeze
That rustles through the Jasmin flowers
And stirs among the Tamarind trees;
A little gurgle of the spray
That drips, unheard, though silent hours,
Then breaks in sudden bubbling play.
Wind, have you never loved a rose?
And water, seek you not the Sea?
Why, therefore, mock at my repose?
Is it my fault I am alone
Beneath the feathery Tamarind tree
Whose shadows over me are thrown?
Nay, I am mad indeed, with thirst
For all to me this night denied
And drunk with longing, and accurst
Beyond all chance of sleep or rest,
With love, unslaked, unsatisfied,
And dreams of beauty unpossessed.
Hating the hour that brings you not,
Mad at the space betwixt us twain,
Sad for my empty arms, so hot
And fevered, even the chilly stone
Can scarcely cool their burning pain,--
And oh, this sense of being alone!
Take hence, O Night, your wasted hours,
You bring me not my Life's Delight,
My Star of Stars, my Flower of Flowers!
You leave me loveless and forlorn,
Pass on, most false and futile night,
Pass on, and perish in the Dawn!
Famine Song
Death and Famine on every side
And never a sign of rain,
The bones of those who have starved and died
Unburied upon the plain.
What care have I that the bones bleach white?
To-morrow they may be mine,
But I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!
Cholera, Riot, and Sudden Death,
And the brave red blood set free,
The glazing eye and the failing breath,--
But what are these things to me?
Your breath is quick and your eyes are bright
And your blood is red like wine,
And I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And hold your lips with mine!
I hear the sound of a thousand tears,
Like softly pattering rain,
I see the fever, folly, and fears
Fulfilling man's tale of pain.
But for the moment your star is bright,
I revel beneath its shine,
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!
And you need not deem me over cold,
That I do not stop to think
For all the pleasure this Life may hold
Is on the Precipice brink.
Thought could but lessen my soul's delight,
And to-day she may not pine.
For I shall lie in your arms to-night
And close your lips with mine!
I trust what sorrow the Fates may send
I may carry quietly through,
And pray for grace when I reach the end,
To die as a man should do.
To-day, at least, must be clear and bright,
Without a sorrowful sign,
Because I sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!
So on I work, in the blazing sun,
To bury what dead we may,
But glad, oh, glad, when the day is done
And the night falls round us grey.
Would those we covered away from sight
Had a rest as sweet as mine!
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!
The Window Overlooking the Harbour
Sad is the Evening: all the level sand
Lies left and lonely, while the restless sea,
Tired of the green caresses of the land,
Withdraws into its own infinity.
But still more sad this white and chilly Dawn
Filling the vacant spaces of the sky,
While little winds blow here and there forlorn
And all the stars, weary of shining, die.
And more than desolate, to wake, to rise,
Leaving the couch, where softly sleeping still,
What through the past night made my heaven, lies;
And looking out across the window sill
See, from the upper window's vantage ground,
Mankind slip into harness once again,
And wearily resume his daily round
Of love and labour, toil and strife and pain.
How the sad thoughts slip back across the night:
The whole thing seems so aimless and so vain.
What use the raptures, passion and delight,
Burnt out; as though they could not wake again.
The worn-out nerves and weary brain repeat
The question: Whither all these passions tend;--
This curious thirst, so painful and so sweet,
So fierce, so very short-lived, to what end?
Even, if seeking for ourselves, the Race,
The only immortality we know,--
Even if from the flower of our embrace
Some spark should kindle, or some fruit should grow,
What were the use? the gain, to us or it,
That we should cause another You or Me,--
Another life, from our light passion lit,
To suffer like ourselves awhile and die.
What aim, what end indeed? Our being runs
In a closed circle. All we know or see
Tends to assure us that a thousand Suns,
Teeming perchance with life, have ceased to be.
Ah, the grey Dawn seems more than desolate,
And the past night of passion worse than waste,
Love but a useless flower, that soon or late,
Turns to a fruit with bitter aftertaste.
Youth, even Youth, seems futile and forlorn
While the new day grows slowly white above.