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2026-07-15T19:49:47+00:00
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Sarojini Naidu, "The Golden Threshold" (1905) (full text)
Full text of Sarojini Naidu's first collection of poetry, published in London
<em>This text is based on a version at Project Gutenberg. </em><br /><br />THE GOLDEN THRESHOLD<br /><br /><br />BY<br /><br />SAROJINI NAIDU<br /><br /><br /><br />WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR SYMONS<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />DEDICATED TO EDMUND GOSSE WHO FIRST SHOWED ME THE WAY TO THE<br />GOLDEN THRESHOLD<br /><br />London: Heinemann<br />1905<br /><br /><br /><br />CONTENTS<br /><br />FOLK SONGS<br /><br /> Palanquin-Bearers<br /> Wandering Singers<br /> Indian Weavers<br /> Coromandel Fishers<br /> The Snake-Charmer<br /> Corn-Grinders<br /> Village-Song<br /> In Praise of Henna<br /> Harvest Hymn<br /> Indian Love-Song<br /> Cradle-Song<br /> Suttee<br /><br />SONGS FOR MUSIC<br /><br /> Song of a Dream<br /> Humayun to Zobeida<br /> Autumn Song Alabaster<br /> Ecstasy<br /> To my Fairy Fancies<br /><br />POEMS<br /><br /> Ode to H. H. the Nizam of Hyderabad<br /> In the Forest<br /> Past and Future Life<br /> The Poet's Love-Song<br /> To the God of Pain<br /> The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa<br /> Indian Dancers<br /> My Dead Dream<br /> Damayante to Nala in the Hour of Exile<br /> The Queen's Rival<br /> The Poet to Death<br /> The Indian Gipsy<br /> To my Children<br /> The Pardah Nashin<br /> To Youth<br /> Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad<br /> Street Cries<br /> To India<br /> The Royal Tombs of Golconda<br /> To a Buddha seated on a Lotus<br /><br /><br /><br />INTRODUCTION<br /><br />It is at my persuasion that these poems are now published. The<br />earliest of them were read to me in London in 1896, when the<br />writer was seventeen; the later ones were sent to me from India<br />in 1904, when she was twenty-five; and they belong, I think,<br />almost wholly to those two periods. As they seemed to me to have<br />an individual beauty of their own, I thought they ought to be<br />published. The writer hesitated. "Your letter made me very<br />proud and very sad," she wrote. "Is it possible that I have<br />written verses that are 'filled with beauty,' and is it possible<br />that you really think them worthy of being given to the world?<br />You know how high my ideal of Art is; and to me my poor casual<br />little poems seem to be less than beautiful--I mean with that<br />final enduring beauty that I desire." And, in another letter,<br />she writes: "I am not a poet really. I have the vision and the<br />desire, but not the voice. If I could write just one poem full<br />of beauty and the spirit of greatness, I should be exultantly<br />silent for ever; but I sing just as the birds do, and my songs<br />are as ephemeral." It is for this bird-like quality of song, it<br />seems to me, that they are to be valued. They hint, in a sort of<br />delicately evasive way, at a rare temperament, the temperament of<br />a woman of the East, finding expression through a Western<br />language and under partly Western influences. They do not<br />express the whole of that temperament; but they express, I think,<br />its essence; and there is an Eastern magic in them.<br /><br />Sarojini Chattopadhyay was born at Hyderabad on February 13,<br />1879. Her father, Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, is descended<br />from the ancient family of Chattorajes of Bhramangram, who were<br />noted throughout Eastern Bengal as patrons of Sanskrit learning,<br />and for their practice of Yoga. He took his degree of Doctor of<br />Science at the University of Edinburgh in 1877, and afterwards<br />studied brilliantly at Bonn. On his return to India he founded<br />the Nizam College at Hyderabad, and has since laboured incessantly,<br />and at great personal sacrifice, in the cause of education.<br /><br />Sarojini was the eldest of a large family, all of whom were<br />taught English at an early age. "I," she writes, "was stubborn<br />and refused to speak it. So one day when I was nine years old my<br />father punished me--the only time I was ever punished--by<br />shutting me in a room alone for a whole day. I came out of it a<br />full-blown linguist. I have never spoken any other language to<br />him, or to my mother, who always speaks to me in Hindustani. I<br />don't think I had any special hankering to write poetry as a<br />little child, though I was of a very fanciful and dreamy nature.<br />My training under my father's eye was of a sternly scientific<br />character. He was determined that I should be a great mathematician<br />or a scientist, but the poetic instinct, which I inherited from him<br />and also from my mother (who wrote some lovely Bengali lyrics in her<br />youth) proved stronger. One day, when I was eleven, I was sighing<br />over a sum in algebra: it WOULDN'T come right; but instead a whole<br />poem came to me suddenly. I wrote it down.<br /><br />"From that day my 'poetic career' began. At thirteen I wrote a<br />long poem a la 'Lady of the Lake'--1300 lines in six days. At<br />thirteen I wrote a drama of 2000 lines, a full-fledged passionate<br />thing that I began on the spur of the moment without forethought,<br />just to spite my doctor who said I was very ill and must not<br />touch a book. My health broke down permanently about this time,<br />and my regular studies being stopped I read voraciously. I<br />suppose the greater part of my reading was done between fourteen<br />and sixteen. I wrote a novel, I wrote fat volumes of journals; I<br />took myself very seriously in those days."<br /><br />Before she was fifteen the great struggle of her life began. Dr.<br />Govindurajulu Naidu, now her husband, is, though of an old and<br />honourable family, not a Brahmin. The difference of caste roused<br />an equal opposition, not only on the side of her family, but of<br />his; and in 1895 she was sent to England, against her will, with<br />a special scholarship from the Nizam. She remained in England,<br />with an interval of travel in Italy, till 1898, studying first at<br />King's College, London, then, till her health again broke down,<br />at Girton. She returned to Hyderabad in September 1898, and in<br />the December of that year, to the scandal of all India, broke<br />through the bonds of caste, and married Dr. Naidu. "Do you know<br />I have some very beautiful poems floating in the air," she wrote<br />to me in 1904; "and if the gods are kind I shall cast my soul<br />like a net and capture them, this year. If the gods are<br />kind--and grant me a little measure of health. It is all I need<br />to make my life perfect, for the very 'Spirit of Delight' that<br />Shelley wrote of dwells in my little home; it is full of the<br />music of birds in the garden and children in the long arched<br />verandah." There are songs about the children in this book; they<br />are called the Lord of Battles, the Sun of Victory, the<br />Lotus-born, and the Jewel of Delight.<br /><br />"My ancestors for thousands of years," I find written in one of<br />her letters, "have been lovers of the forest and mountain caves,<br />great dreamers, great scholars, great ascetics. My father is a<br />dreamer himself, a great dreamer, a great man whose life has been<br />a magnificent failure. I suppose in the whole of India there are<br />few men whose learning is greater than his, and I don't think<br />there are many men more beloved. He has a great white beard and<br />the profile of Homer, and a laugh that brings the roof down. He<br />has wasted all his money on two great objects: to help others,<br />and on alchemy. He holds huge courts every day in his garden of<br />all the learned men of all religions--Rajahs and beggars and<br />saints and downright villains all delightfully mixed up, and all<br />treated as one. And then his alchemy! Oh dear, night and day<br />the experiments are going on, and every man who brings a new<br />prescription is welcome as a brother. But this alchemy is, you<br />know, only the material counterpart of a poet's craving for<br />Beauty, the eternal Beauty. 'The makers of gold and the makers<br />of verse,' they are the twin creators that sway the world's<br />secret desire for mystery; and what in my father is the genius of<br />curiosity--the very essence of all scientific genius--in me is<br />the desire for beauty. Do you remember Pater's phrase about<br />Leonardo da Vinci, 'curiosity and the desire of beauty'?"<br /><br />It was the desire of beauty that made her a poet; her "nerves of<br />delight" were always quivering at the contact of beauty. To<br />those who knew her in England, all the life of the tiny figure<br />seemed to concentrate itself in the eyes; they turned towards<br />beauty as the sunflower turns towards the sun, opening wider and<br />wider until one saw nothing but the eyes.<br /><br />She was dressed always in clinging dresses of Eastern silk, and<br />as she was so small, and her long black hair hung straight down<br />her back, you might have taken her for a child. She spoke<br />little, and in a low voice, like gentle music; and she seemed,<br />wherever she was, to be alone.<br /><br />Through that soul I seemed to touch and take hold upon the East.<br />And first there was the wisdom of the East. I have never known<br />any one who seemed to exist on such "large draughts of intellectual<br />day" as this child of seventeen, to whom one could tell all one's<br />personal troubles and agitations, as to a wise old woman. In the<br />East, maturity comes early; and this child had already lived through<br />all a woman's life. But there was something else, something hardly<br />personal, something which belonged to a consciousness older than the<br />Christian, which I realised, wondered at, and admired, in her passionate<br />tranquillity of mind, before which everything mean and trivial and<br />temporary caught fire and burnt away in smoke. Her body was never<br />without suffering, or her heart without conflict; but neither the<br />body's weakness nor the heart's violence could disturb that fixed<br />contemplation, as of Buddha on his lotus-throne.<br /><br />And along with this wisdom, as of age or of the age of a race,<br />there was what I can hardly call less than an agony of sensation.<br />Pain or pleasure transported her, and the whole of pain or<br />pleasure might be held in a flower's cup or the imagined frown of<br />a friend. It was never found in those things which to others<br />seemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed the<br />Matriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herself<br />famous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was not<br />pleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in a<br />letter from Hyderabad, bidding one "share a March morning" with<br />her, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst:<br />"Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: this<br />sumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet lilies<br />that adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem and<br />champak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with their<br />implacable sweetness; the thousand little gold and blue and<br />silver breasted birds bursting with the shrill ecstasy of life in<br />nesting time. All is hot and fierce and passionate, ardent and<br />unashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life and<br />love. And, do you know that the scarlet lilies are woven petal by<br />petal from my heart's blood, these little quivering birds are my<br />soul made incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotions<br />dissolved into aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky is<br />the 'very me,' that part of me that incessantly and insolently,<br />yes, and a little deliberately, triumphs over that other part--a<br />thing of nerves and tissues that suffers and cries out, and that<br />must die to-morrow perhaps, or twenty years hence."<br /><br />Then there was her humour, which was part of her strange wisdom,<br />and was always awake and on the watch. In all her letters,<br />written in exquisite English prose, but with an ardent imagery<br />and a vehement sincerity of emotion which make them, like the<br />poems, indeed almost more directly, un-English, Oriental, there<br />was always this intellectual, critical sense of humour, which<br />could laugh at one's own enthusiasm as frankly as that enthusiasm<br />had been set down. And partly the humour, like the delicate<br />reserve of her manner, was a mask or a shelter. "I have taught<br />myself," she writes to me from India, "to be commonplace and like<br />everybody else superficially. Every one thinks I am so nice and<br />cheerful, so 'brave,' all the banal things that are so comfortable<br />to be. My mother knows me only as 'such a tranquil child, but so<br />strong-willed.' A tranquil child!" And she writes again, with deeper<br />significance: "I too have learnt the subtle philosophy of living from<br />moment to moment. Yes, it is a subtle philosophy, though it appears<br />merely an epicurean doctrine: 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for<br />to-morrow we die.' I have gone through so many yesterdays when I<br />strove with Death that I have realised to its full the wisdom of that<br />sentence; and it is to me not merely a figure of speech, but a<br />literal fact. Any to-morrow I might die. It is scarcely two months<br />since I came back from the grave: is it worth while to be anything<br />but radiantly glad? Of all things that life or perhaps my temperament<br />has given me I prize the gift of laughter as beyond price."<br /><br />Her desire, always, was to be "a wild free thing of the air like<br />the birds, with a song in my heart." A spirit of too much fire<br />in too frail a body, it was rarely that her desire was fully<br />granted. But in Italy she found what she could not find in<br />England, and from Italy her letters are radiant. "This Italy is<br />made of gold," she writes from Florence, "the gold of dawn and<br />daylight, the gold of the stars, and, now dancing in weird<br />enchanting rhythms through this magic month of May, the gold of<br />fireflies in the perfumed darkness--'aerial gold.' I long to<br />catch the subtle music of their fairy dances and make a poem with<br />a rhythm like the quick irregular wild flash of their sudden<br />movements. Would it not be wonderful? One black night I stood<br />in a garden with fireflies in my hair like darting restless stars<br />caught in a mesh of darkness. It gave me a strange sensation, as<br />if I were not human at all, but an elfin spirit. I wonder why<br />these little things move me so deeply? It is because I have a<br />most 'unbalanced intellect,' I suppose." Then, looking out on<br />Florence, she cries, "God! how beautiful it is, and how glad I am<br />that I am alive to-day!" And she tells me that she is drinking<br />in the beauty like wine, "wine, golden and scented, and shining,<br />fit for the gods; and the gods have drunk it, the dead gods of<br />Etruria, two thousand years ago. Did I say dead? No, for the<br />gods are immortal, and one might still find them loitering in<br />some solitary dell on the grey hillsides of Fiesole. Have I seen<br />them? Yes, looking with dreaming eyes, I have found them sitting<br />under the olives, in their grave, strong, antique beauty--Etruscan<br />gods!"<br /><br />In Italy she watches the faces of the monks, and at one moment<br />longs to attain to their peace by renunciation, longs for Nirvana;<br />"then, when one comes out again into the hot sunshine that warms<br />one's blood, and sees the eager hurrying faces of men and women<br />in the street, dramatic faces over which the disturbing experiences<br />of life have passed and left their symbols, one's heart thrills up<br />into one's throat. No, no, no, a thousand times no! how can one<br />deliberately renounce this coloured, unquiet, fiery human life of<br />the earth?" And, all the time, her subtle criticism is alert, and<br />this woman of the East marvels at the women of the West, "the<br />beautiful worldly women of the West," whom she sees walking in the<br />Cascine, "taking the air so consciously attractive in their brilliant<br />toilettes, in the brilliant coquetry of their manner!" She finds<br />them "a little incomprehensible," "profound artists in all the subtle<br />intricacies of fascination," and asks if these "incalculable<br />frivolities and vanities and coquetries and caprices" are, to us,<br />an essential part of their charm? And she watches them with<br />amusement as they flutter about her, petting her as if she were a<br />nice child, a child or a toy, not dreaming that she is saying to<br />herself sorrowfully: "How utterly empty their lives must be of<br />all spiritual beauty IF they are nothing more than they appear to be."<br /><br />She sat in our midst, and judged us, and few knew what was<br />passing behind that face "like an awakening soul," to use one of<br />her own epithets. Her eyes were like deep pools, and you seemed<br />to fall through them into depths below depths.<br /><br />ARTHUR SYMONS.<br /><br /><br /><br />FOLK SONGS<br /><br /><br /><br />PALANQUIN BEARERS<br /><br /> Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,<br /> She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;<br /> She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,<br /> She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.<br /> Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,<br /> We bear her along like a pearl on a string.<br /><br /> Softly, O softly we bear her along,<br /> She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;<br /> She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,<br /> She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.<br /> Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,<br /> We bear her along like a pearl on a string.<br /><br /><br /><br />WANDERING SINGERS<br /><br /> (Written to one of their Tunes)<br /><br /> Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet,<br /> Through echoing forest and echoing street,<br /> With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam,<br /> All men are our kindred, the world is our home.<br /><br /> Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed,<br /> The laughter and beauty of women long dead;<br /> The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,<br /> And happy and simple and sorrowful things.<br /><br /> What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?<br /> Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go.<br /> No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait:<br /> The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.<br /><br /><br /><br />INDIAN WEAVERS<br /><br /> Weavers, weaving at break of day,<br /> Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .<br /> Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,<br /> We weave the robes of a new-born child.<br /><br /> Weavers, weaving at fall of night,<br /> Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .<br /> Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,<br /> We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.<br /><br /> Weavers, weaving solemn and still,<br /> What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .<br /> White as a feather and white as a cloud,<br /> We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.<br /><br /><br /><br />COROMANDEL FISHERS<br /><br /> Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray<br /> to the morning light,<br /> The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn<br /> like a child that has cried all night.<br /> Come, let us gather our nets from the shore,<br /> and set our catamarans free,<br /> To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for<br /> we are the sons of the sea.<br /><br /> No longer delay, let us hasten away in the<br /> track of the sea-gull's call,<br /> The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother,<br /> the waves are our comrades all.<br /> What though we toss at the fall of the sun<br /> where the hand of the sea-god drives?<br /> He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide<br /> in his breast our lives.<br /><br /> Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and<br /> the scent of the mango grove,<br /> And sweet are the sands at the full o' the<br /> moon with the sound of the voices we love.<br /> But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray<br /> and the dance of the wild foam's glee:<br /> Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge,<br /> where the low sky mates with the sea.<br /><br /><br /><br />THE SNAKE-CHARMER<br /><br /> Whither dost thou hide from the magic of my flute-call?<br /> In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume,<br /> Where the clustering keovas guard the squirrel's slumber,<br /> Where the deep woods glimmer with the jasmine's bloom?<br /><br /> I'll feed thee, O beloved, on milk and wild red honey,<br /> I'll bear thee in a basket of rushes, green and white,<br /> To a palace-bower where golden-vested maidens<br /> Thread with mellow laughter the petals of delight.<br /><br /> Whither dost thou loiter, by what murmuring hollows,<br /> Where oleanders scatter their ambrosial fire?<br /> Come, thou subtle bride of my mellifluous wooing,<br /> Come, thou silver-breasted moonbeam of desire!<br /><br /><br /><br />CORN-GRINDERS<br /><br /> O LITTLE MOUSE, WHY DOST THOU CRY<br /> WHILE MERRY STARS LAUGH IN THE SKY?<br /><br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead!<br /> Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?<br /> He went to seek a millet-grain<br /> In the rich farmer's granary shed;<br /> They caught him in a baited snare,<br /> And slew my lover unaware:<br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead.<br /><br /> O LITTLE DEER, WHY DOST THOU MOAN,<br /> HID IN THY FOREST-BOWER ALONE?<br /><br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead!<br /> Ah! who will quiet my lament?<br /><br /> At fall of eventide he went<br /> To drink beside the river-head;<br /> A waiting hunter threw his dart,<br /> And struck my lover through the heart.<br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead.<br /><br /> O LITTLE BRIDE, WHY DOST THOU WEEP<br /> WITH ALL THE HAPPY WORLD ASLEEP?<br /><br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead!<br /> Ah, who will stay these hungry tears,<br /> Or still the want of famished years,<br /> And crown with love my marriage-bed?<br /> My soul burns with the quenchless fire<br /> That lit my lover's funeral pyre:<br /> Alas! alas! my lord is dead.<br /><br /><br /><br />VILLAGE-SONG<br /><br /> Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going?<br /> Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing?<br /> Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you?<br /> Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you?<br /><br /> Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going,<br /> Where upon the champa boughs the champa buds are blowing;<br /> To the koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lilies glisten,<br /> The voices of the fairy folk are calling me: O listen!<br /><br /> Honey, child, honey, child, the world is full of pleasure,<br /> Of bridal-songs and cradle-songs and sandal-scented leisure.<br /> Your bridal robes are in the loom, silver and saffron glowing,<br /> Your bridal cakes are on the hearth: O whither are you going?<br /><br /> The bridal-songs and cradle-songs have cadences of sorrow,<br /> The laughter of the sun to-day, the wind of death to-morrow.<br /> Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest-streams are falling;<br /> O mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy-folk are calling.<br /><br /><br /><br />IN PRAISE OF HENNA<br /><br /> A kokila called from a henna-spray:<br /> LIRA! LIREE! LIRA! LIREE!<br /> Hasten, maidens, hasten away<br /> To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.<br /> Send your pitchers afloat on the tide,<br /> Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old,<br /> Grind them in mortars of amber and gold,<br /> The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree.<br /><br /> A kokila called from a henna-spray:<br /> LIRA! LIREE! LIRA! LIREE!<br /> Hasten maidens, hasten away<br /> To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.<br /> The tilka's red for the brow of a bride,<br /> And betel-nut's red for lips that are sweet;<br /> But, for lily-like fingers and feet,<br /> The red, the red of the henna-tree.<br /><br /><br /><br />HARVEST HYMN<br /><br /> Men's Voices<br /><br /> Lord of the lotus, lord of the harvest,<br /> Bright and munificent lord of the morn!<br /> Thine is the bounty that prospered our sowing,<br /> Thine is the bounty that nurtured our corn.<br /> We bring thee our songs and our garlands for tribute,<br /> The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit;<br /> O giver of mellowing radiance, we hail thee,<br /> We praise thee, O Surya, with cymbal and flute.<br /><br /> Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest,<br /> Great and beneficent lord of the main!<br /> Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows,<br /> Thine is the mercy that fostered our grain.<br /> We bring thee our thanks and our garlands for tribute,<br /> The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe;<br /> O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee,<br /> We praise thee, Varuna, with cymbal and pipe.<br /><br /><br /> Women's Voices<br /><br /> Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the harvest,<br /> Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth!<br /> Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us,<br /> Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.<br /> We bring thee our love and our garlands for tribute,<br /> With gifts of thy opulent giving we come;<br /> O source of our manifold gladness, we hail thee,<br /> We praise thee, O Prithvi, with cymbal and drum.<br /><br /><br /> All Voices<br /><br /> Lord of the Universe, Lord of our being,<br /> Father eternal, ineffable Om!<br /> Thou art the Seed and the Scythe of our harvests,<br /> Thou art our Hands and our Heart and our Home.<br /> We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute,<br /> Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.<br /> O Life of all life and all blessing, we hail thee,<br /> We praise thee, O Bramha, with cymbal and prayer.<br /><br /><br /><br />INDIAN LOVE-SONG<br /><br /> She<br /><br /> Like a serpent to the calling voice of flutes,<br /> Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love!<br /> Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above<br /> His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers;<br /> And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits<br /> Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers.<br /><br /><br /> He<br /><br /> Like the perfume in the petals of a rose,<br /> Hides thy heart within my bosom, O my love!<br /> Like a garland, like a jewel, like a dove<br /> That hangs its nest in the asoka-tree.<br /> Lie still, O love, until the morning sows<br /> Her tents of gold on fields of ivory.<br /><br /><br /><br />CRADLE-SONG<br /><br /> From groves of spice,<br /> O'er fields of rice,<br /> Athwart the lotus-stream,<br /> I bring for you,<br /> Aglint with dew<br /> A little lovely dream.<br /><br /> Sweet, shut your eyes,<br /> The wild fire-flies<br /> Dance through the fairy neem;<br /> From the poppy-bole<br /> For you I stole<br /> A little lovely dream.<br /><br /> Dear eyes, good-night,<br /> In golden light<br /> The stars around you gleam;<br /> On you I press<br /> With soft caress<br /> A little lovely dream.<br /><br /><br /><br />SUTTEE<br /><br /> Lamp of my life, the lips of Death<br /> Hath blown thee out with their sudden breath;<br /> Naught shall revive thy vanished spark . . .<br /> Love, must I dwell in the living dark?<br /><br /> Tree of my life, Death's cruel foot<br /> Hath crushed thee down to thy hidden root;<br /> Nought shall restore thy glory fled . . .<br /> Shall the blossom live when the tree is dead?<br /><br /> Life of my life, Death's bitter sword<br /> Hath severed us like a broken word,<br /> Rent us in twain who are but one . .<br /> Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone?<br /><br /><br /><br />SONGS FOR MUSIC<br /><br /><br />SONG OF A DREAM<br /><br /> Once in the dream of a night I stood<br /> Lone in the light of a magical wood,<br /> Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;<br /> And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,<br /> And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,<br /> And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed<br /> In that magical wood in the land of sleep.<br /><br /> Lone in the light of that magical grove,<br /> I felt the stars of the spirits of Love<br /> Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,<br /> And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;<br /> To quench my longing I bent me low<br /> By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow<br /> In that magical wood in the land of sleep.<br /><br /><br /><br />HUMAYUN TO ZOBEIDA<br /><br /> (From the Urdu)<br /><br /> You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn,<br /> Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan.<br /><br /> You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon,<br /> Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune.<br /><br /> Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace,<br /> You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE."<br /><br /> Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss?<br /> Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss?<br /><br /> What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife,<br /> You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life.<br /><br /><br /><br />AUTUMN SONG<br /><br /> Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,<br /> The sunset hangs on a cloud;<br /> A golden storm of glittering sheaves,<br /> Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves,<br /> The wild wind blows in a cloud.<br /><br /> Hark to a voice that is calling<br /> To my heart in the voice of the wind:<br /> My heart is weary and sad and alone,<br /> For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone,<br /> And why should I stay behind?<br /><br /><br /><br />ALABASTER<br /><br /> Like this alabaster box whose art<br /> Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,<br /> Carven with delicate dreams and wrought<br /> With many a subtle and exquisite thought.<br /><br /> Therein I treasure the spice and scent<br /> Of rich and passionate memories blent<br /> Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove,<br /> Of song and sorrow and life and love.<br /><br /><br /><br />ECSTASY<br /><br /> Cover mine eyes, O my Love!<br /> Mine eyes that are weary of bliss<br /> As of light that is poignant and strong<br /> O silence my lips with a kiss,<br /> My lips that are weary of song!<br /><br /> Shelter my soul, O my love!<br /> My soul is bent low with the pain<br /> And the burden of love, like the grace<br /> Of a flower that is smitten with rain:<br /> O shelter my soul from thy face!<br /><br /><br /><br />TO MY FAIRY FANCIES<br /><br /> Nay, no longer I may hold you,<br /> In my spirit's soft caresses,<br /> Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you<br /> In the tangles of my tresses.<br /> Fairy fancies, fly away<br /> To the white cloud-wildernesses,<br /> Fly away!<br /><br /> Nay, no longer ye may linger<br /> With your laughter-lighted faces,<br /> Now I am a thought-worn singer<br /> In life's high and lonely places.<br /> Fairy fancies, fly away,<br /> To bright wind-inwoven spaces,<br /> Fly away!<br /><br /><br /><br />POEMS<br /><br /> ODE TO H.H. THE NIZAM OF HYDERABAD<br /><br /> (Presented at the Ramzan Durbar)<br /><br /> Deign, Prince, my tribute to receive,<br /> This lyric offering to your name,<br /> Who round your jewelled scepter bind<br /> The lilies of a poet's fame;<br /> Beneath whose sway concordant dwell<br /> The peoples whom your laws embrace,<br /> In brotherhood of diverse creeds,<br /> And harmony of diverse race:<br /><br /> The votaries of the Prophet's faith,<br /> Of whom you are the crown and chief<br /> And they, who bear on Vedic brows<br /> Their mystic symbols of belief;<br /><br /> And they, who worshipping the sun,<br /> Fled o'er the old Iranian sea;<br /> And they, who bow to Him who trod<br /> The midnight waves of Galilee.<br /><br /> Sweet, sumptuous fables of Baghdad<br /> The splendours of your court recall,<br /> The torches of a Thousand Nights<br /> Blaze through a single festival;<br /> And Saki-singers down the streets,<br /> Pour for us, in a stream divine,<br /> From goblets of your love-ghazals<br /> The rapture of your Sufi wine.<br /><br /> Prince, where your radiant cities smile,<br /> Grim hills their sombre vigils keep,<br /> Your ancient forests hoard and hold<br /> The legends of their centuried sleep;<br /> Your birds of peace white-pinioned float<br /> O'er ruined fort and storied plain,<br /> Your faithful stewards sleepless guard<br /> The harvests of your gold and grain.<br /><br /> God give you joy, God give you grace<br /> To shield the truth and smite the wrong,<br /> To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth.<br /> To cherish faith and foster song.<br /> So may the lustre of your days<br /> Outshine the deeds Firdusi sung,<br /> Your name within a nation's prayer,<br /> Your music on a nation's tongue.<br /><br /><br /><br />LEILI<br /><br /> The serpents are asleep among the poppies,<br /> The fireflies light the soundless panther's way<br /> To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying,<br /> And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day.<br /> O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream<br /> Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.<br /><br /> A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven,<br /> The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright<br /> The winds are dancing in the forest-temple,<br /> And swooning at the holy feet of Night.<br /> Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing<br /> And make the gods their incense-offering.<br /><br /><br /><br />IN THE FOREST<br /><br /> Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,<br /> Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre<br /> Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,<br /> Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.<br /><br /> We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne<br /> The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,<br /> Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;<br /> We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.<br /><br /> But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again<br /> Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;<br /> Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain,<br /> We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.<br /><br /><br /><br />PAST AND FUTURE<br /><br /> THE NEW HATH COME AND NOW THE OLD RETIRES:<br /> And so the past becomes a mountain-cell,<br /> Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell<br /> In consecrated calm, forgotten yet<br /> Of the keen heart that hastens to forget<br /> Old longings in fulfilling new desires.<br /><br /> And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense<br /> Expectancy and anguish of suspense,<br /> On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees<br /> Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown,<br /> His timid future shrinking there alone,<br /> Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.<br /><br /><br /><br />LIFE<br /><br /> Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems<br /> Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,<br /> Or carnival of careless joys that leap<br /> About your hearts like billows on the deep<br /> In flames of amber and of amethyst.<br /><br /> Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist<br /> Till some resistless hour shall rise and move<br /> Your hearts to wake and hunger after love,<br /> And thirst with passionate longing for the things<br /> That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.<br /><br /> Till ye have battled with great grief and fears,<br /> And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years,<br /> Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife,<br /> Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.<br /><br /><br /><br />THE POET'S LOVE-SONG<br /><br /> In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong,<br /> I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind<br /> The world to my desire, and hold the wind<br /> A voiceless captive to my conquering song.<br /> I need thee not, I am content with these:<br /> Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas!<br /><br /> But in the desolate hour of midnight, when<br /> An ecstasy of starry silence sleeps<br /> On the still mountains and the soundless deeps,<br /> And my soul hungers for thy voice, O then,<br /> Love, like the magic of wild melodies,<br /> Let thy soul answer mine across the seas.<br /><br /><br /><br />TO THE GOD OF PAIN<br /><br /> Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane,<br /> Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain,<br /> Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows,<br /> My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows<br /> Anointed with perpetual weariness.<br /> Long have I borne thy service, through the stress<br /> Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights,<br /> Performing thine inexorable rites.<br /><br /> For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,<br /> But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice:<br /> All the rich honey of my youth's desire,<br /> And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn,<br /> And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire<br /> Of hopes up-leaping like the light of dawn.<br /><br /> I have no more to give, all that was mine<br /> Is laid, a wrested tribute, at thy shrine;<br /> Let me depart, for my whole soul is wrung,<br /> And all my cheerless orisons are sung;<br /> Let me depart, with faint limbs let me creep<br /> To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.<br /><br /><br /><br />THE SONG OF PRINCESS ZEB-UN-NISSA<br /> IN PRAISE OF HER OWN BEAUTY<br /><br /> (From the Persian)<br /><br /> When from my cheek I lift my veil,<br /> The roses turn with envy pale,<br /> And from their pierced hearts, rich with pain,<br /> Send forth their fragrance like a wail.<br /><br /> Or if perchance one perfumed tress<br /> Be lowered to the wind's caress,<br /> The honeyed hyacinths complain,<br /> And languish in a sweet distress.<br /><br /> And, when I pause, still groves among,<br /> (Such loveliness is mine) a throng<br /> Of nightingales awake and strain<br /> Their souls into a quivering song.<br /><br /><br /><br />INDIAN DANCERS<br /><br /> Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting,<br /> what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire<br /> Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth<br /> heavens that glimmer around them in<br /> fountains of light;<br /> O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music<br /> that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire,<br /> And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces<br /> bewitch the voluptuous watches of night.<br /><br /> The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter<br /> and die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair,<br /> And smiles are entwining like magical serpents<br /> the poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet;<br /> Their glittering garments of purple are burning<br /> like tremulous dawns in the quivering air,<br /> And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle<br /> and tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.<br /><br /> Now silent, now singing and swaying and swinging,<br /> like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers,<br /> Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they<br /> falter, and, lingering, languish in radiant<br /> choir;<br /> Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering, lily-long<br /> fingers enchant through melodious hours,<br /> Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting,<br /> what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire!<br /><br /><br /><br />MY DEAD DREAM<br /><br /> Have you found me, at last, O my Dream?<br /> Seven aeons ago<br /> You died and I buried you deep under forests<br /> of snow.<br /> Why have you come hither? Who bade you<br /> awake from your sleep<br /> And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the<br /> deep?<br /><br /> Would you tear from my lintels these sacred<br /> green garlands of leaves?<br /> Would you scare the white, nested, wild<br /> pigeons of joy from my eaves?<br /> Would you touch and defile with dead fingers<br /> the robes of my priest?<br /> Would you weave your dim moan with the<br /> chantings of love at my feast?<br /><br /> Go back to your grave, O my Dream, under<br /> forests of snow,<br /> Where a heart-riven child hid you once, seven<br /> aeons ago.<br /> Who bade you arise from your darkness? I<br /> bid you depart!<br /> Profane not the shrines I have raised in the<br /> clefts of my heart.<br /><br /><br /><br />DAMAYANTE TO NALA IN THE HOUR OF EXILE<br /><br /> (A fragment)<br /><br /> Shalt thou be conquered of a human fate<br /> My liege, my lover, whose imperial head<br /> Hath never bent in sorrow of defeat?<br /> Shalt thou be vanquished, whose imperial feet<br /> Have shattered armies and stamped empires dead?<br /> Who shall unking thee, husband of a queen?<br /> Wear thou thy majesty inviolate.<br /> Earth's glories flee of human eyes unseen,<br /> Earth's kingdoms fade to a remembered dream,<br /> But thine henceforth shall be a power supreme,<br /> Dazzling command and rich dominion,<br /> The winds thy heralds and thy vassals all<br /> The silver-belted planets and the sun.<br /> Where'er the radiance of thy coming fall,<br /> Shall dawn for thee her saffron footcloths spread,<br /> Sunset her purple canopies and red,<br /> In serried splendour, and the night unfold<br /> Her velvet darkness wrought with starry gold<br /> For kingly raiment, soft as cygnet-down.<br /> My hair shall braid thy temples like a crown<br /> Of sapphires, and my kiss upon thy brows<br /> Like cithar-music lull thee to repose,<br /> Till the sun yield thee homage of his light.<br /><br /> O king, thy kingdom who from thee can wrest?<br /> What fate shall dare uncrown thee from this breast,<br /> O god-born lover, whom my love doth gird<br /> And armour with impregnable delight<br /> Of Hope's triumphant keen flame-carven sword?<br /><br /><br /><br />THE QUEEN'S RIVAL<br /><br /> QUEEN Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,<br /> Around her countless treasures were spread;<br /><br /> Her chamber walls were richly inlaid<br /> With agate, porphory, onyx and jade;<br /><br /> The tissues that veiled her delicate breast,<br /> Glowed with the hues of a lapwing's crest;<br /><br /> But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed<br /> "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."<br /><br /> King Feroz bent from his ebony seat:<br /> "Is thy least desire unfulfilled, O Sweet?<br /><br /> "Let thy mouth speak and my life be spent<br /> To clear the sky of thy discontent."<br /><br /> "I tire of my beauty, I tire of this<br /> Empty splendour and shadowless bliss;<br /><br /> "With none to envy and none gainsay,<br /> No savour or salt hath my dream or day."<br /><br /> Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose:<br /> "Give me a rival, O King Feroz."<br /><br /><br /> II<br /><br /> King Feroz spoke to his Chief Vizier:<br /> "Lo! ere to-morrow's dawn be here,<br /><br /> "Send forth my messengers over the sea,<br /> To seek seven beautiful brides for me;<br /><br /> "Radiant of feature and regal of mien,<br /> Seven handmaids meet for the Persian Queen."<br /><br /> . . . . .<br /><br /><br /> Seven new moon tides at the Vesper call,<br /> King Feroz led to Queen Gulnaar's hall<br /><br /> A young queen eyed like the morning star:<br /> "I bring thee a rival, O Queen Gulnaar."<br /><br /> But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:<br /> "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."<br /><br /> Seven queens shone round her ivory bed,<br /> Like seven soft gems on a silken thread,<br /><br /> Like seven fair lamps in a royal tower,<br /> Like seven bright petals of Beauty's flower<br /><br /> Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose<br /> "Where is my rival, O King Feroz?"<br /><br /><br /> III<br /><br /> When spring winds wakened the mountain floods,<br /> And kindled the flame of the tulip buds,<br /> When bees grew loud and the days grew long,<br /> And the peach groves thrilled to the oriole's song,<br /><br /> Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,<br /> Decking with jewels her exquisite head;<br /><br /> And still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:<br /> "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."<br /><br /> Queen Gulnaar's daughter two spring times old,<br /> In blue robes bordered with tassels of gold,<br /><br /> Ran to her knee like a wildwood fay,<br /> And plucked from her hand the mirror away.<br /><br /> Quickly she set on her own light curls<br /> Her mother's fillet with fringes of pearls;<br /><br /> Quickly she turned with a child's caprice<br /> And pressed on the mirror a swift, glad kiss.<br /><br /> Queen Gulnaar laughed like a tremulous rose:<br /> "Here is my rival, O King Feroz."<br /><br /><br /><br />THE POET TO DEATH<br /><br /> Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die<br /> While yet my sweet life burgeons with its spring;<br /> Fair is my youth, and rich the echoing boughs<br /> Where dhadikulas sing.<br /><br /> Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die<br /> With all my blossoming hopes unharvested,<br /> My joys ungarnered, all my songs unsung,<br /> And all my tears unshed.<br /><br /> Tarry a while, till I am satisfied<br /> Of love and grief, of earth and altering sky;<br /> Till all my human hungers are fulfilled,<br /> O Death, I cannot die!<br /><br /><br /><br />THE INDIAN GIPSY<br /><br /> In tattered robes that hoard a glittering trace<br /> Of bygone colours, broidered to the knee,<br /> Behold her, daughter of a wandering race,<br /> Tameless, with the bold falcon's agile grace,<br /> And the lithe tiger's sinuous majesty.<br /><br /> With frugal skill her simple wants she tends,<br /> She folds her tawny heifers and her sheep<br /> On lonely meadows when the daylight ends,<br /> Ere the quick night upon her flock descends<br /> Like a black panther from the caves of sleep.<br /><br /> Time's river winds in foaming centuries<br /> Its changing, swift, irrevocable course<br /> To far off and incalculable seas;<br /> She is twin-born with primal mysteries,<br /> And drinks of life at Time's forgotten source.<br /><br /><br /><br />TO MY CHILDREN<br /><br /> Jaya Surya, aetat 4<br /><br /> Golden sun of victory, born<br /> In my life's unclouded morn,<br /> In my lambent sky of love,<br /> May your growing glory prove<br /> Sacred to your consecration,<br /> To my heart and to my nation.<br /> Sun of victory, may you be<br /> Sun of song and liberty.<br /><br /><br /> Padmaja, aetat 3<br /><br /> Lotus-maiden, you who claim<br /> All the sweetness of your name,<br /> Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you,<br /> Lotus-born like you, and send you<br /> Balmy moons of love to bless you,<br /> Gentle joy-winds to caress you.<br /> Lotus-maiden, may you be<br /> Fragrant of all ecstasy.<br /><br /><br /> Ranadheera, aetat 2<br /><br /> Little lord of battle, hail<br /> In your newly-tempered mail!<br /> Learn to conquer, learn to fight<br /> In the foremost flanks of right,<br /> Like Valmiki's heroes bold,<br /> Rubies girt in epic gold.<br /> Lord of battle, may you be,<br /> Lord of love and chivalry.<br /><br /><br /> Lilamani, aetat 1<br /><br /> Limpid jewel of delight<br /> Severed from the tender night<br /> Of your sheltering mother-mine,<br /> Leap and sparkle, dance and shine,<br /> Blithely and securely set<br /> In love's magic coronet.<br /> Living jewel, may you be<br /> Laughter-bound and sorrow-free.<br /><br /><br /><br />THE PARDAH NASHIN<br /><br /> Her life is a revolving dream<br /> Of languid and sequestered ease;<br /> Her girdles and her fillets gleam<br /> Like changing fires on sunset seas;<br /> Her raiment is like morning mist,<br /> Shot opal, gold and amethyst.<br /><br /> From thieving light of eyes impure,<br /> From coveting sun or wind's caress,<br /> Her days are guarded and secure<br /> Behind her carven lattices,<br /> Like jewels in a turbaned crest,<br /> Like secrets in a lover's breast.<br /><br /> But though no hand unsanctioned dares<br /> Unveil the mysteries of her grace,<br /> Time lifts the curtain unawares,<br /> And Sorrow looks into her face . . .<br /> Who shall prevent the subtle years,<br /> Or shield a woman's eyes from tears?<br /><br /><br /><br />TO YOUTH<br /><br /> O Youth, sweet comrade Youth, wouldst thou be gone?<br /> Long have we dwelt together, thou and I;<br /> Together drunk of many an alien dawn,<br /> And plucked the fruit of many an alien sky.<br /><br /> Ah, fickle friend, must I, who yesterday<br /> Dreamed forwards to long, undimmed ecstasy,<br /> Henceforward dream, because thou wilt not stay,<br /> Backward to transient pleasure and to thee?<br /><br /> I give thee back thy false, ephemeral vow;<br /> But, O beloved comrade, ere we part,<br /> Upon my mournful eyelids and my brow<br /> Kiss me who hold thine image in my heart.<br /><br /><br /><br />NIGHTFALL IN THE CITY OF HYDERABAD<br /><br /> See how the speckled sky burns like a pigeon's throat,<br /> Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote.<br /><br /> See the white river that flashes and scintillates,<br /> Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates.<br /><br /> Hark, from the minaret, how the muezzin's call<br /> Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall.<br /><br /> From trellised balconies, languid and luminous<br /> Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous.<br /><br /> Leisurely elephants wind through the winding lanes,<br /> Swinging their silver bells hung from their silver chains.<br /><br /> Round the high Char Minar sounds of gay cavalcades<br /> Blend with the music of cymbals and serenades.<br /><br /> Over the city bridge Night comes majestical,<br /> Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.<br /><br /><br /><br />STREET CRIES<br /><br /> When dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky,<br /> Rousing the world to labour's various cry,<br /> To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain,<br /> From ardent toil to forge a little gain,<br /> And fasting men go forth on hurrying feet,<br /> BUY BREAD, BUY BREAD, rings down the eager street.<br /><br /> When the earth falters and the waters swoon<br /> With the implacable radiance of noon,<br /> And in dim shelters koils hush their notes,<br /> And the faint, thirsting blood in languid throats<br /> Craves liquid succour from the cruel heat,<br /> BUY FRUIT, BUY FRUIT, steals down the panting street.<br /><br /> When twilight twinkling o'er the gay bazaars,<br /> Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars,<br /> When lutes are strung and fragrant torches lit<br /> On white roof-terraces where lovers sit<br /> Drinking together of life's poignant sweet,<br /> BUY FLOWERS, BUY FLOWERS, floats down the singing street.<br /><br /><br /><br />TO INDIA<br /><br /> O young through all thy immemorial years!<br /> Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,<br /> And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,<br /> Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!<br /><br /> The nations that in fettered darkness weep<br /> Crave thee to lead them where great mornings break . . . .<br /> Mother, O Mother, wherefore dost thou sleep?<br /> Arise and answer for thy children's sake!<br /><br /> Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound<br /> To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;<br /> Waken, O slumbering Mother and be crowned,<br /> Who once wert empress of the sovereign Past.<br /><br /><br /><br />THE ROYAL TOMBS OF GOLCONDA<br /><br /> I muse among these silent fanes<br /> Whose spacious darkness guards your dust;<br /> Around me sleep the hoary plains<br /> That hold your ancient wars in trust.<br /> I pause, my dreaming spirit hears,<br /> Across the wind's unquiet tides,<br /> The glimmering music of your spears,<br /> The laughter of your royal brides.<br /><br /> In vain, O Kings, doth time aspire<br /> To make your names oblivion's sport,<br /> While yonder hill wears like a tier<br /> The ruined grandeur of your fort.<br /> Though centuries falter and decline,<br /> Your proven strongholds shall remain<br /> Embodied memories of your line,<br /> Incarnate legends of your reign.<br /><br /> O Queens, in vain old Fate decreed<br /> Your flower-like bodies to the tomb;<br /> Death is in truth the vital seed<br /> Of your imperishable bloom<br /> Each new-born year the bulbuls sing<br /> Their songs of your renascent loves;<br /> Your beauty wakens with the spring<br /> To kindle these pomegranate groves.<br /><br /><br /><br />TO A BUDDHA SEATED ON A LOTUS<br /><br /> Lord Buddha, on thy Lotus-throne,<br /> With praying eyes and hands elate,<br /> What mystic rapture dost thou own,<br /> Immutable and ultimate?<br /> What peace, unravished of our ken,<br /> Annihilate from the world of men?<br /><br /> The wind of change for ever blows<br /> Across the tumult of our way,<br /> To-morrow's unborn griefs depose<br /> The sorrows of our yesterday.<br /> Dream yields to dream, strife follows strife,<br /><br /> And Death unweaves the webs of Life.<br /><br /> For us the travail and the heat,<br /> The broken secrets of our pride,<br /> The strenuous lessons of defeat,<br /> The flower deferred, the fruit denied;<br /> But not the peace, supremely won,<br /> Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne.<br /><br /> With futile hands we seek to gain<br /> Our inaccessible desire,<br /> Diviner summits to attain,<br /> With faith that sinks and feet that tire;<br /> But nought shall conquer or control<br /> The heavenward hunger of our soul.<br /><br /> The end, elusive and afar,<br /> Still lures us with its beckoning flight,<br /> And all our mortal moments are<br /> A session of the Infinite.<br /> How shall we reach the great, unknown<br /> Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?<br /><br /><br /><br />
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