The Collected Works | Page 9

white hot brand.
It's coming to know that she never knew why?(Seeing at last she could never know why)?And never could understand.
TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS
Will you conquer my heart with your beauty; my soul going out from afar? Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious shikar?
Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking and blind? Shall I meet you next session at Simla, O sweetest and best of your kind?
Does the P. and O. bear you to meward, or, clad in short frocks in the West, Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torture the heart in my breast?
Will you stay in the Plains till September--my passion as warm as the day? Will you bring me to book on the Mountains, or where the thermantidotes play?
When the light of your eyes shall make pallid the mean lesser lights I pursue, And the charm of your presence shall lure me from love of the gay "thirteentwo";
When the peg and the pig-skin shall please not; when I buy me Calcutta-build clothes;?When I quit the Delight of Wild Asses; forswearing the swearing of oaths ; As a deer to the hand of the hunter when I turn 'mid the gibes of my friends; When the days of my freedom are numbered, and the life of the bachelor ends.
Ah, Goddess! child, spinster, or widow--as of old on Mars Hill whey they raised?To the God that they knew not an altar--so I, a young Pagan, have praised The Goddess I know not nor worship; yet, if half that men tell me be true, You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written to you.
THE RUPAIYAT OF OMAR KAL'VIN
[Allowing for the difference 'twixt prose and rhymed exaggeration, this ought to reproduce the sense of what Sir A-- told the nation sometime ago, when the Government struck from our incomes two per cent.]
Now the New Year, reviving last Year's Debt,?The Thoughtful Fisher casteth wide his Net;?So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue?Assail all Men for all that I can get.
Imports indeed are gone with all their Dues--?Lo! Salt a Lever that I dare not use,?Nor may I ask the Tillers in Bengal--?Surely my Kith and Kin will not refuse!
Pay--and I promise by the Dust of Spring,?Retrenchment. If my promises can bring?Comfort, Ye have Them now a thousandfold--?By Allah! I will promise Anything!
Indeed, indeed, Retrenchment oft before?I swore--but did I mean it when I swore??And then, and then, We wandered to the Hills,?And so the Little Less became Much More.
Whether a Boileaugunge or Babylon,?I know not how the wretched Thing is done,?The Items of Receipt grow surely small;?The Items of Expense mount one by one.
I cannot help it. What have I to do?With One and Five, or Four, or Three, or Two??Let Scribes spit Blood and Sulphur as they please,?Or Statesmen call me foolish--Heed not you.
Behold, I promise--Anything You will.?Behold, I greet you with an empty Till--?Ah! Fellow-Sinners, of your Charity?Seek not the Reason of the Dearth, but fill.
For if I sinned and fell, where lies the Gain?Of Knowledge? Would it ease you of your Pain?To know the tangled Threads of Revenue,?I ravel deeper in a hopeless Skein?
"Who hath not Prudence"--what was it I said,?Of Her who paints her Eyes and tires Her Head,?And gibes and mocks the People in the Street,?And fawns upon them for Her thriftless Bread?
Accursed is She of Eve's daughters--She?Hath cast off Prudence, and Her End shall be?Destruction . . . Brethren, of your Bounty?Some portion of your daily Bread to Me.
LA NUIT BLANCHE
A much-discerning Public hold?The Singer generally sings?And prints and sells his past for gold.
Whatever I may here disclaim,?The very clever folk I sing to?Will most indubitably cling to?Their pet delusion, just the same.
I had seen, as the dawn was breaking?And I staggered to my rest,?Tari Devi softly shaking?From the Cart Road to the crest.
I had seen the spurs of Jakko?Heave and quiver, swell and sink.?Was it Earthquake or tobacco,?Day of Doom, or Night of Drink?
In the full, fresh fragrant morning?I observed a camel crawl,?Laws of gravitation scorning,?On the ceiling and the wall;?Then I watched a fender walking,?And I heard grey leeches sing,?And a red-hot monkey talking?Did not seem the proper thing.
Then a Creature, skinned and crimson,?Ran about the floor and cried,?And they said that I had the "jims" on,?And they dosed me with bromide,?And they locked me in my bedroom--?Me and one wee Blood Red Mouse--?Though I said: "To give my head room?You had best unroof the house."
But my words were all unheeded,?Though I told the grave M.D.?That the treatment really needed?Was a dip in open sea?That was lapping just below me,?Smooth as silver, white as snow,?And it took three men to throw me?When I found I could not go.
Half the night I watched the Heavens?Fizz like '81