Last Poems | Page 7

strife,?May some day solve the riddle,
The Mystery of Life.
Perchance I do not value
Things Western as I ought,?The trains,--that take us, whither?
The ships,--that reach, what port??To me it seems but chaos
Of greed and haste and rage,?The endless, aimless, motion
Of squirrels in a cage.
Here, where some ruined temple
In solitude decays,?With carven walls still hallowed
With prayers of bygone days,?Here, where the coral outcrops
Make "flowers of the sea,"?The olden Peace yet lingers,
In hushed serenity.
Ah, silent, silver moonlight,
Whose charm impartial falls?On tanks of sacred water
And squalid city walls,?Whose mystic whiteness hallows
The lowest and the least,?To thee men owe the glamour
That draws them to the East.
And as this azure water,
Unflecked hy wave or foam,?Conceals in its tranquillity
The dreaded white shark's home,?So if love be illusion
I ask the dream to stay,?Content to love by moonlight
What I might not love by day.
Lallji my Desire
"This is no time for saying 'no'"
Were thy last words to me,?And yet my lips refused the kiss
They might have given thee.
How could I know
That thou wouldst go
To sleep so far from me?
They took thee to the Burning-Ghat,
Oh, Lallji, my desire,?And now a faint and lonely flame
Uprises from the pyre.?The thin grey smoke in spirals drifts
Across the opal sky.?Would that I were a wife of thine,
And thus with thee could die!
How could I know
That thou wouldst go,
Oh, Lallji, my desire?
The lips I missed
The flames have kissed
Upon the Sandal pyre.
If one should meet me with a knife
And cut my heart in twain,?Then would he see the smoke arise
From every severed vein.?Such is the burning, inward fire,
The anguish of my pain,?For my Beloved, whose dying lips
Implored a kiss--in vain!
How could I know
That thou wouldst go,
Oh, Lallji, my desire?
Too young thou art
To lay thy heart
Upon the Sandal pyre.
Thy wife awaits her coming child;
What were a child to me,?If I might take thee in these arms
And face the flames with thee??The priests are chanting round the pyre,
At dusk they will depart?And leave to thee thy lonely rest,
To me my lonelier heart.
How could I know
Thou lovedst me so?
Upon the Sandal pyre
He lies forsaken.
The flames have taken
My Lallji, my desire!
Rutland Gate
His back is bent and his lips are blue,
Shivering out in the wet:?"Here's a florin, my man, for you,
Go and get drunk and forget!"
Right in the midst of a Christian land,
Rotted with wealth and ease,?Broken and draggled they let him stand
Till his feet on the pavement freeze.
God leaves His poor in His vicars' care,
For He hears the church-bells ring,?His ears are buzzing with constant prayer
And the hymns His people sing.
Can His pity picture the anguish here,
Can He see, through a London fog,?The man who has worked "nigh seventy year"
To die the death of a dog?
No one heeds him, the crowds pass on.
Why does he want to live??"Take this florin, and get you gone,
Go and get drunk,--and forgive!"
Atavism
Deep in the jungle vast and dim,
That knew not