Works

We have left Gul Kach behind us,
Are marching on Apozai, -
Where pleasure and rest are waiting
To welcome us by and by.

We're falling back from the Gomal,
Across the Gir-dao plain,...

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,...

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,...

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,...

The fields are full of Poppies, and the skies are very blue,
By the Temple in the coppice, I wait, Beloved, for you.
The level land is sunny, and the errant air is gay,...

Although my life, which thou hast scarred and shaken,
Retains awhile some influence of thee,
As shells, by faithless waves long since forsaken,
Still murmur with the music of the Sea,
...

Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?
...

You never loved me, and yet to save me,
One unforgetable night you gave me
Such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights
Receive from clouds, in northern, Auroral nights....

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,...

Oh, Silver Stars that shine on what I love,
Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes, -
Send, from your calm serenity above,
Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies.
...

The Stars await, serene and white,
The unarisen moon;
Oh, come and stay with me to-night,
Beside the salt Lagoon!

My hut is small, but as you lie,
You see the lighted shore,...

Love, let me thank you for this!
Now we have drifted apart,
Wandered away from the sea, -
For the fresh touch of your kiss,
For the young warmth of your heart,
For your youth given to me.
...

A little breeze blew over the sea,
And it came from far away,
Across the fields of millet and rice,
All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice,
It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice,...

Against the planks of the cabin side,
(So slight a thing between them and me,)
The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed,
The great green waves of the Indian sea!
...

Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat
Afar, afloat...

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,...

This was the tale Sher Afzul told to me,
While the spent camels bubbled on their knees,
And ruddy camp-fires twinkled through the gloom
Sweet with the fragrance from the Sinjib trees.
...

(While the procession passed at Ramesram)


Nearer and nearer cometh the car
Where the Golden Goddess towers,
Sweeter and sweeter grows the air
From a thousand trampled flowers....

"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes
No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?

"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented,...

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.
...