Sonnets

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by Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad,
(Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
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Title: Sonnets
Author: Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook #11266]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SONNETS
BY THE
NAWAB NIZAMAT JUNG BAHADUR
"_Love is not discoverable by the eye, but only by the soul. Its
elements are indeed innate in our mortal constitution, and we give it the
names of Joy and Aphrodite; but in its highest nature no mortal hath
fully comprehended it_."
EMPEDOCLES.
"_Every one choose the object of his affections according to his

character.... The Divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and by these the
wings of the soul are nourished_."
PLATO.
1917
CONTENTS
FOREWORD, BY R.C. FRASER
NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF
THE SONNET IN ENGLISH LITERATURE PROLOGUE
I.
REBIRTH
II. THE CROWN OF LIFE
III. BEFORE THE
THRONE
IV. WORSHIP
V. UNITY
VI. LOVE'S SILENCE

VII. THE SUBLIME HOPE
VIII. THE HEART OF LOVE

IX. "'TWIXT STAR AND STAR"
X. THE HIGHER
KNIGHTHOOD
XI. IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM
XII. ETERNAL
JOY
XIII. CONSTANCY
XIV. CALM AFTER STORM
XV.
THE STAR OF LOVE
XVI. IMPRISONED MUSIC
XVII.
LOVE'S MESSAGE
XVIII. ECSTASY
XIX. THE DREAM

XX. ETHEREAL BEAUTY
XXI. A CROWN OF THORNS

XXII. TWO HEARTS IN ONE
XXIII. YEARNING
XXIV.
LOVE'S GIFT
EPILOGUE
FOREWORD
BY RICHARD CHARLES FRASER
The following Sonnet Sequence,--written during rare intervals of
leisure in a busy and strenuous life,--was privately printed in Madras
early in 1914, without any intention of publication on the part of the
author. He has, however, now consented to allow it to be given to a
wider audience; and we anticipate in many directions a welcome for
this small but significant volume by the writer of _India to England_,
one of the most popular and often-quoted lyrics evoked by the Great
War.

The Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur, was born in the State of Hyderabad,
but educated in England; and there are some--at Cambridge and
elsewhere--who will remember his keenly discriminating interest in
British history and literature, and the comprehensive way he, in a few
words, would indicate his impressions of poets and heroes, long dead,
but to him ever-living.
His appreciation was both ardent and just; he could swiftly recognise
the nobler elements in characters which at first glance might seem
startlingly dissimilar; and he could pass without apparent effort from
study of the lives of men of action to the inward contemplations of
abstruse philosophers.
To those who have not met him, it may appear paradoxical to say that
his tastes were at the same moment acutely fastidious and widely
sympathetic; but anyone who has talked with him will recall the blend
of high impersonal ideas with a remarkable personality which seldom
failed to stimulate other minds--even if those others shared few if any
of his intellectual tastes.
A famous British General (still living) was once asked, "What is the
most essential quality for a great leader of men?" And he replied in one
word "SYMPATHY." The General was speaking of leadership in
relation to warfare; and by "Sympathy" he meant swift insight into the
minds of others; and, with this insight, the power to arouse and fan into
a flame the spark of chivalry and true nobility in each. The career of the
Nawab Nizamat Jung has not been set in the world of action,--he is at
present a Judge of the High Court in Hyderabad,--but nevertheless this
definition of sympathy is not irrelevant, for the Nawab's personal
influence has been more subtle and far-reaching than he himself is yet
aware. His love of poetry and history, if on the one hand it has
intensified his realisation of the sorrows and tragedies of earthly life, on
the other hand has equipped him with a power to awake in others a
vivid consciousness of the moral value of literature,--through which
(for the mere asking) we any of us can find our way into a kingdom of
great ideas. This kingdom is also the kingdom of eternal realities--or so
at least it should be; and those who in the early nineties in England

talked with Nizamoudhin (as he then was) could scarcely fail to notice
that he valued the genius of an author, or the exploits of a character in
history, chiefly in proportion to the permanent and vital nature of the
truths this character had laboured to express--whether in words or
action.
But Truth, has many faces; and scarcely any poet (except perhaps
Shakespeare) has come within measurable distance of expressing every
aspect of