Indias Love Lyrics | Page 5

what is the use of my speech, since I know of no words to recall you? I am praying that Time may teach, you, your Cruelty, me, Forgetfulness.
Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the Stars
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.
Broken, forlorn, upon the Desert sand?That sucks these tears, and utterly abased,?Looking across the lonely, level land,?With thoughts more desolate than any waste.
Planets that shine on what I so adore,?Now thrown, the hour is late, in careless rest,?Protect that sleep, which I may watch no more,?I, the cast out, dismissed and dispossessed.
Far in the hillside camp, in slumber lies?What my worn eyes worship but never see.?Happier Stars! your myriad silver eyes?Feast on the quiet face denied to me.
Loved with a love beyond all words or sense,?Lost with a grief beyond the saltest tear,?So lovely, so removed, remote, and hence?So doubly and so desperately dear!
Stars! from your skies so purple and so calm,?That through the centuries your secrets keep,?Send to this worn-out brain some Occult Balm,?Send me, for many nights so sleepless, sleep.
And ere the sunshine of the Desert jars?My sense with sorrow and another day,?Through your soft Magic, oh, my Silver Stars!?Turn sleep to Death in some mysterious way.
Reminiscence of Mahomed Akram
I shall never forget you, never. Never escape?Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.
The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
When it comes unsought?On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or pale Tuberose.?Any one of the sweet white fragrant flowers,?Flowers I used to love and lay in your hair.
Sunset is terribly sad. I saw you stand?Tall against the red and the gold like a slender palm;?The light wind stirred your hair as you waved your hand,?Waved farewell, as ever, serene and calm,?To me, the passion-wearied and tost and torn,?Riding down the road in the gathering grey.
Since that day?The sunset red is empty, the gold forlorn.
Often across the Banqueting board at nights?Men linger about your name in careless praise?The name that cuts deep into my soul like a knife;?And the gay guest-faces and flowers and leaves and lights?Fade away from the failing sense in a haze,
And the music sways?Far away in unmeasured distance. . . .
I cannot forget--?I cannot escape. What are the Stars to me??Stars that meant so much, too much, in my youth;?Stars that sparkled about your eyes,?Made a radiance round your hair,
What are they now?
Lingering lights of a Finished Feast,?Little lingering sparks rather,
Of a Light that is long gone out.
Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest
He loved the Plant with a keen delight,?A passionate fervour, strange to see,?Tended it ardently, day and night,?Yet never a flower lit up the tree.
The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,?And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem?Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen,?To catch at aught that molested them.
But though they nurtured it day and night,?With love and labour, the child and he?Were never granted the longed-for sight?Of a flower crowning the twisted tree.
Until one evening a wayworn Priest?Stopped for the night in the Temple shade?And shared the fare of their simple feast?Under the vines and the jasmin laid.
He, later, wandering round the flowers?Paused awhile by the blossomless tree.?The man said, "May it be fault of ours,?That never its buds my eyes may see?
"Aslip it came from the further East?Many a sunlit summer ago."?"It grows in our Jungles," said the Priest,?"Men see it rarely; but this I know,
"The Jungle people worship it; say?They bury a child around its roots--?Bury it living:--the only way?To crimson glory of flowers and fruits."
He spoke in whispers; his furtive glance?Probing the depths of the garden shade.?The man came closer, with eyes askance,?The child beside them shivered, afraid.
A cold wind drifted about the three,?Jarring the spines with a hungry sound,?The spines that grew on the snakelike tree?And guarded its roots beneath the ground.
. . . . . .
After the fall of the summer rain?The plant was glorious, redly gay,?Blood-red with blossom. Never again?Men saw the child in the Temple play.
Request
Give me your self one hour; I do not crave?For any love, or even thought, of me.?Come, as a Sultan may caress a slave?And then forget for ever, utterly.
Come! as west winds, that passing, cool and wet,?O'er desert places, leave them fields in flower?And all my life, for I shall not forget,?Will keep the fragrance of that perfect hour!
Story of Udaipore:?Told by Lalla-ji, the Priest
"And when the Summer Heat is great,?And every hour intense,?The Moghra, with its subtle flowers,?Intoxicates the sense."
The Coco palms stood tall and slim, against the golden-glow, And all their grey and graceful plumes were waving to and fro.
She lay forgetful in the boat, and watched the dying Sun?Sink slowly lakewards, while the stars replaced him, one by one.
She saw the marble Temple walls long white reflections