Indias Love Lyrics | Page 2

on yonder tomb.?Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,?Strange works of a long dead people loom,?Obscene and savage and half effaced--?An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast--?And curious matings of man and beast;?What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?
Whose fingers traced,?In this arid waste,?These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust.
Strange, weird things that no man may say,?Things Humanity hides away;--
Secretly done,--?Catch the light of the living day,
Smile in the sun.?Cruel things that man may not name,?Naked here, without fear or shame,
Laughed in the carven stone.
Deep in the Temple's innermost Shrine is set,
Where the bats and shadows dwell,?The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest
In its oval shell,?By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed,?Represented their Great Destroying Power.
I cannot forget?That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower,?Love came and destroyed it all in a single hour,
Therefore the dual Mystery suits me well.
Sitting alone,?The tank's deep water is cool and sweet,?Soothing and fresh to the wayworn feet,
Dreaming, under the Tamarind shade,?One silently thanks the men who made?So green a place in this bitter land
Of sunburnt sand.
The peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo,?Little green, talkative Parrots woo,?And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance,?At alien me, in their furtive glance,?Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see?The stranger under their Tamarind tree.
Daylight dies,?The Camp fires redden like angry eyes,
The Tents show white,?In the glimmering light,?Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies,
And the hum of the Camp sounds like the sea,?Drifting over the sand to me.
Afar, in the Desert some wild voice sings?To a jangling zither with minor strings,?And, under the stars growing keen above,?I think of the thing that I love.
A beautiful thing, alert, serene,?With passionate, dreaming, wistful eyes,?Dark and deep as mysterious skies,?Seen from a vessel at sea.?Alas, you drifted away from me,?And Time and Space have rushed in between,?But they cannot undo the Thing-that-has-been,
Though it never again may be.?You were mine, from dusk until dawning light,?For the perfect whole of that bygone night
You belonged to me!
They say that Love is a light thing,?A foolish thing and a slight thing,
A ripe fruit, rotten at core;?They speak in this futile fashion?To me, who am wracked with passion,?Tormented beyond compassion,
For ever and ever more.
They say that Possession lessens a lover's delight,?As radiant mornings fade into afternoon.?I held what I loved in my arms for many a night,?Yet ever the morning lightened the sky too soon.
Beyond our tents the sands stretch level and far,?Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees.?A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze?From the ruinous Temple garden where roses are.
I dream of the rose-like perfume that fills your hair,?Of times when my lips were free of your soft closed eyes,?While down in the tank the waters ripple and rise?And the flying foxes silently cleave the air.
The present is subtly welded into the past,?My love of you with the purple Indian dusk,?With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk,
And withering jasmin flowers.?My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last,
While the lonely hours?Follow each other, silently, one by one,
Till the night is almost done.
Then weary, and drunk with dreams, with my garments damp?And heavy with dew, I wander towards the camp.?Tired, with a brain in which fancy and fact are blent,?I stumble across the ropes till I reach my tent?And then to rest. To ensweeten my sleep with lies,?To dream I lie in the light of your long lost eyes,
My lips set free.?To love and linger over your soft loose hair--?To dream I lay your delicate beauty bare
To solace my fevered eyes.?Ah,--if my life might end in a night like this--?Drift into death from dreams of your granted kiss!
Verses
You are my God, and I would fain adore You?With sweet and secret rites of other days.?Burn scented oil in silver lamps before You,?Pour perfume on Your feet with prayer and praise.
Yet are we one; Your gracious condescension?Granted, and grants, the loveliness I crave.?One, in the perfect sense of Eastern mention,?"Gold and the Bracelet, Water and the Wave."
Song of Khan Zada
As one may sip a Stranger's Bowl?You gave yourself but not your soul.?I wonder, now that time has passed,?Where you will come to rest at last.
You gave your beauty for an hour,?I held it gently as a flower.?You wished to leave me, told me so,--?I kissed your feet and let you go.
The Teak Forest
Whether I loved you who shall say??Whether I drifted down your way?In the endless River of Chance and Change,?And you woke the strange?Unknown longings that have no names,?But burn us all in their hidden flames,
Who shall say?
Life is a strange and a wayward thing:?We heard the bells of the Temples ring,?The married children, in passing, sing.?The month of marriage, the month of spring,?Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers?That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,?And, under