Indias Love Lyrics | Page 8

light for dawning,

And mourned the paling stars, as each withdrew!
Yet I, even I, who am less than dust before you,
Less than the lowest
lintel of your door,
Was given one breathless midnight, to adore you.

Fate, having granted this, can give no more!
Afridi Love
Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful
To me, who loved you
so, for one short night,
For one brief space of darkness, though my
absence
Did but endure until the dawning light;
Since all your beauty--which was mine--you squandered
On that
which now lies dead across your door;
See here this knife, made keen
and bright to kill you.
You shall not see the sun rise any more.
Lie still! Lie still! In all the empty village
Who is there left to hear or

heed your cry?
All are gone to labour in the valley,
Who will return
before your time to die?
No use to struggle; when I found you sleeping,
I took your hands and
bound them to your side,
And both these slender feet, too apt at
straying,
Down to the cot on which you lie are tied.
Lie still, Beloved; that dead thing lying yonder,
I hated and I killed,
but love is sweet,
And you are more than sweet to me, who love you,

Who decked my eyes with dust from off your feet.
Give me your lips; Ah, lovely and disloyal
Give me yourself again;
before you go
Down through the darkness of the Great, Blind Portal,

All of life's best and basest you must know.
Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile
I held you gently,
as one holds a flower:
But now, God knows, what use to still be
tender
To one whose life is done within an hour?
I hurt? What then? Death will not hurt you, dearest,
As you hurt me,
for just a single night,
You call me cruel, who laid my life in ruins

To gain one little moment of delight.
Look up, look out, across the open doorway
The sunlight streams.
The distant hills are blue.
Look at the pale, pink peach trees in our
garden,
Sweet fruit will come of them;--but not for you.
The fair, far snow, upon those jagged mountains
That gnaw against
the hard blue Afghan sky
Will soon descend, set free by summer
sunshine.
You will not see those torrents sweeping by.
The world is not for you. From this day forward,
You must lie still
alone; who would not lie
Alone for one night only, though returning

I was, when earliest dawn should break the sky.

There lies my lute, and many strings are broken,
Some one was
playing it, and some one tore
The silken tassels round my Hookah
woven;
Some one who plays, and smokes, and loves, no more!
Some one who took last night his fill of pleasure,
As I took mine at
dawn! The knife went home
Straight through his heart! God only
knows my rapture
Bathing my chill hands in the warm red foam.
And so I pain you? This is only loving,
Wait till I kill you! Ah, this
soft, curled hair!
Surely the fault was mine, to love and leave you

Even a single night, you are so fair.
Cold steel is very cooling to the fervour
Of over passionate ones,
Beloved, like you.
Nay, turn your lips to mine. Not quite unlovely

They are as yet, as yet, though quite untrue.
What will your brother say, to-night returning
With laden camels
homewards to the hills,
Finding you dead, and me asleep beside you,

Will he awake me first before he kills?
For I shall sleep. Here on the cot beside you
When you, my Heart's
Delight, are cold in death.
When your young heart and restless lips
are silent,
Grown chilly, even beneath my burning breath.
When I have slowly drawn my knife across you,
Taking my pleasure
as I see you swoon,
I shall sleep sound, worn out by love's last
fervour,
And then, God grant your kinsmen kill me soon!
Yasmini
At night, when Passion's ebbing tide
Left bare the Sands of Truth,

Yasmini, resting by my side,
Spoke softly of her youth.
"And one" she said "was tall and slim,
Two crimson rose leaves made
his mouth,
And I was fain to follow him
Down to his village in the

South.
"He was to build a hut hard by
The stream where palms were growing,

We were to live, and love, and lie,
And watch the water flowing.
"Ah, dear, delusive, distant shore,
By dreams of futile fancy gilt!

The riverside we never saw,
The palm leaf hut was never built!
"One had a Tope of Mangoe trees,
Where early morning, noon and
late,
The Persian wheels, with patient ease,
Brought up their liquid,
silver freight.
"And he was fain to rise and reach
That garden sloping to the sea,

Whose groves along the wave-swept beach
Should shelter him and
love and me.
"Doubtless, upon that western shore
With ripe fruit falling to the
ground,
There dwells the Peace he hungered for,
The lovely Peace
we never found.
"Then there came one with eager eyes
And keen sword, ready for the
fray.
He missed the storms of Northern skies,
The reckless raid and
skirmish