Last Poems | Page 9

From the light of the slanting fourfold Star!
Oh, palm-leaf thatch, where the melon thrives?Beneath the shade of the tamarind tree,?Thou coverest tranquil, graceful lives,?That want so little, that knew no haste,
Nor the bitter goad of a too-full hour;?Whose soft-eyed women are lithe and tall,?And wear no garment below the knee,
Nor veil or raiment above the waist,?But the beautiful hair, that dowers them all,
And falls to the ground in a scented shower.
The youths return from their swift-flowing bath,
With the swinging grace that their height allows,?Lightly climbing the river-side path,
Their soft hair knotted above their brows.
Elephants wade the darkening river,
Their bells, which tinkle in minor thirds,?Faintly sweet, like passionate birds
Whose warbling wakens a sense of pain,--?Thrill through the nerves and make them quiver,--
Heart, my heart, art thou happy again?
Here is beauty to feast thine eyes.
Here is the land of thy long desire.?See how the delicate spirals rise
Azure and faint from the wood-fed fire.
Where the cartmen wearily share their food,
Ere they, by their bullocks, lie down to rest.?Heart of mine, dost thou find it good
This wide red road by the winds caressed?
This lone Parao, where the fireflies light?
These tom-toms, fretting the peace of night?
Heart, thou hast wandered and suffered much,
Death has robbed thee, and Life betrayed,?But there is ever a solace for such
In that they are not lightly afraid.
The strength that found them the fire to love
Finds them also the force to forget.?Thy joy in thy dreaming lives to prove
Thou art not mortally wounded yet.
Here, 'neath the arch of the vast, clear sky,
Where range upon range the remote grey hills?Far in the distance recede and die,
There is no space for thy trivial ills.
On the low horizon towards the sea,
Faint yet vivid, the lightnings play,?The lucid air is kind as a kiss,
The falling twilight is cool and grey.
What has sorrow to do with thee ??Love was cruel? thou now art free.?Life unkind? it has given thee this!
The Tom-toms
Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing,?Like a lonely lover sobbing?For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life's delight? Plaintive sounds, restrained, enthralling,?Seeking through the twilight falling?Something lost beyond recalling, in the darkness of the night.
Oh, my little, loved Firoza,?Come and nestle to me closer,?Where the golden-balled Mimosa makes a canopy above,?For the day, so hot and burning,?Dies away, and night, returning,?Sets thy lover's spirit yearning for thy beauty and thy love.
Soon will come the rosy warning?Of the bright relentless morning,?When, thy soft caresses scorning, I shall leave thee in the shade. All the day my work must chain me,?And its weary bonds restrain me,?For I may not re-attain thee till the light begins to fade.
But at length the long day endeth,?As the cool of night descendeth?His last strength thy lover spendeth in returning to thy breast, Where beneath the Babul nightly,?While the planets shimmer whitely,?And the fire-flies glimmer brightly, thou shalt give him love and rest.
Far away, across the distance,?The quick-throbbing drums' persistence?Shall resound, with soft insistence, in the pauses of delight, Through the sequence of the hours,?While the starlight and the flowers?Consecrate this love of ours, in the Temple of the Night.
Written in Cananore
I
Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet??Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.
Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy??Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.
Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty's banquet, calm and refreshed, My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.
My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours, As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.
But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,?Who follows his master ever, but far behind,
Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell?Rises up with angry protest, "It is not well!
Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;?And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast not given--I have not known!"
II
Somewhere, Oh, My Beloved One, the house is standing,?Waiting for thee and me; for our first caresses.?It may be a river-boat, or a wave-washed landing,?The shade of a tree in the jungle's dim recesses,
Some far-off mountain tent, ill-pitched and lonely, Or the naked vault of the purple heavens only.
But the Place is waiting there; till the Hour shall show it, And our footsteps, following Fate, find it and know it.
Where we shall worship the greatest of all the Gods in his pomp and power,-- I sometimes think that I shall not care to survive that hour!
Feroke
The rice-birds fly so white, so silver white,
The velvet rice-flats lie so emerald green,?My heart inhales, with sorrowful delight,
The sweet and poignant sadness of the scene.
The swollen tawny river seeks the sea,
Its