The Golden Threshold | Page 9

of song!
Shelter my soul, O my love! My soul is bent low with the pain And the burden of love, like the grace Of a flower that is smitten with rain: O shelter my soul from thy face!

TO MY FAIRY FANCIES
Nay, no longer I may hold you, In my spirit's soft caresses, Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you In the tangles of my tresses. Fairy fancies, fly away To the white cloud-wildernesses, Fly away!
Nay, no longer ye may linger With your laughter-lighted faces, Now I am a thought-worn singer In life's high and lonely places. Fairy fancies, fly away, To bright wind-inwoven spaces, Fly away!

POEMS
ODE TO H.H. THE NIZAM OF HYDERABAD
(Presented at the Ramzan Durbar)
Deign, Prince, my tribute to receive, This lyric offering to your name, Who round your jewelled scepter bind The lilies of a poet's fame; Beneath whose sway concordant dwell The peoples whom your laws embrace, In brotherhood of diverse creeds, And harmony of diverse race:
The votaries of the Prophet's faith, Of whom you are the crown and chief And they, who bear on Vedic brows Their mystic symbols of belief;
And they, who worshipping the sun, Fled o'er the old Iranian sea; And they, who bow to Him who trod The midnight waves of Galilee.
Sweet, sumptuous fables of Baghdad The splendours of your court recall, The torches of a Thousand Nights Blaze through a single festival; And Saki-singers down the streets, Pour for us, in a stream divine, From goblets of your love-ghazals The rapture of your Sufi wine.
Prince, where your radiant cities smile, Grim hills their sombre vigils keep, Your ancient forests hoard and hold The legends of their centuried sleep; Your birds of peace white-pinioned float O'er ruined fort and storied plain, Your faithful stewards sleepless guard The harvests of your gold and grain.
God give you joy, God give you grace To shield the truth and smite the wrong, To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth. To cherish faith and foster song. So may the lustre of your days Outshine the deeds Firdusi sung, Your name within a nation's prayer, Your music on a nation's tongue.

LEILI
The serpents are asleep among the poppies, The fireflies light the soundless panther's way To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying, And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day. O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.
A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven, The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright The winds are dancing in the forest-temple, And swooning at the holy feet of Night. Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing And make the gods their incense-offering.

IN THE FOREST
Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest, Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn; We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng; Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain, We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.

PAST AND FUTURE
THE NEW HATH COME AND NOW THE OLD RETIRES: And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to forget Old longings in fulfilling new desires.
And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense Expectancy and anguish of suspense, On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown, His timid future shrinking there alone, Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.

LIFE
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your hearts to wake and hunger after love, And thirst with passionate longing for the things That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.
Till ye have battled with great grief and fears, And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years, Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife, Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.

THE POET'S LOVE-SONG
In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my