Indias Love Lyrics | Page 6

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 make, The
echoes of their silvery bells were blown across the lake.
The evening air was very sweet; from off the island bowers
Came
scents of Moghra trees in bloom, and Oleander flowers.
"The Moghra flowers that smell so sweet
When love's young fancies
play;
The acrid Moghra flowers, still sweet
Though love be burnt
away."
The boat went drifting, ucontrolled, the rower rowed no more, But
deftly turned the slender prow towards the further shore.
The dying sunset touched with gold the Jasmin in his hair;
His eyes
were darkly luminous: she looked and found him fair.

And so persuasively he spoke, she could not say him nay,
And when
his young hands took her own, she smiled and let them stay.
And all the youth awake in him, all love of Love in her,
All scents of
white and subtle flowers that filled the twilight air
Combined together with the night in kind conspiracy
To do Love
service, while the boat went drifting onwards, free.
"The Moghra flowers, the Moghra flowers,
While Youth's quick
pulses play
They are so sweet, they still are sweet,
Though passion
burns away."
Low in the boat the lovers lay, and from his sable curls
The Jasmin
flowers slipped away to rest among the girl's.
Oh, silver lake and silver night and tender silver sky!
Where as the
hours passed, the moon rose white and cold on high.
"The Moghra flowers, the Moghra flowers,
So dear to Youth at play;

The small and subtle Moghra flowers
That only last a day."
Suddenly, frightened, she awoke, and waking vaguely saw
The boat
had stranded in the sedge that fringed the further shore.
The breeze grown chilly, swayed the palms; she heard, still half awake,
A prowling jackal's hungry cry blown faintly o'er the lake.
She shivered, but she turned to kiss his soft, remembered face, Lit by
the pallid light he lay, in Youth's abandoned grace.
But as her lips met his she paused, in terror and dismay,
The white
moon showed her by her side asleep a Leper lay.
"Ah, Moghra flowers, white Moghra flowers,
All love is blind, they
say;
The Moghra flowers, so sweet, so sweet,
Though love be burnt
away!"

Valgovind's Song in the Spring
The Temple bells are ringing,
The young green corn is springing,
And the marriage month is drawing very near.
I lie hidden in the grass,
And I count the moments pass,
For the month of marriages is drawing near.
Soon, ah, soon, the women spread
The appointed bridal bed
With hibiscus buds and crimson marriage flowers,
Where, when all the songs are done,
And the dear dark night begun,
I shall hold her in my happy arms for hours.
She is young and very sweet,
From the silver on her feet
To the silver and the flowers in her hair,
And her beauty makes me
swoon,
As the Moghra trees at noon
Intoxicate the hot and quivering air.
Ah, I would the hours were fleet
As her silver circled feet,
I am weary of the daytime and the night;
I am weary unto death,
Oh
my rose with jasmin breath,
With this longing for your beauty and your light.
Youth
I am not sure if I knew the truth
What his case or crime might be,
I
only know that he pleaded Youth,
A beautiful, golden plea!
Youth, with its sunlit, passionate eyes,
Its roseate velvet skin--
A

plea to cancel a thousand lies,
Or a thousand nights of sin.
The men who judged him were old and grey
Their eyes and their
senses dim,
He brought the light of a warm Spring day
To the
Court-house bare and grim.
Could he plead guilty in a lovelier way?
His judges acquitted him.
When Love is Over
Song of Khan Zada
Only in August my heart was aflame,
Catching the scent of your
Wind-stirred hair,
Now, though you spread it to soften my sleep

Through the night, I should hardly care.