I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this, The subtlest, most resistless, force we know Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss: The genius of the race will have it so!
Yet, make it not too long, nor too intense My thirst; lest I should break beneath the strain, And the worn nerves, and over-wearied sense, Enjoy not what they spent themselves to gain.
Lest, in the hour when you consent to share That human passion Beauty makes divine, I, over worn, should find you over fair, Lest I should die before I make you mine.
You will consent, those slim, reluctant feet, Falling as lightly on the careless street As the white petals of a wind-worn flower, Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.
Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah
On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie, With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky: A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet, Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.
For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard, To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word. And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken, The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.
As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose, Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows; So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.
So sweet you are, with your tinted cheeks and your small caressive hands, What if I carried you home with me, where our Golden Temple stands? Yet, this were folly indeed; to bind, in fetters of permanence, A passing dream whose enchantment charms because of its trancience.
Life is ever a slave to Time; we have but an hour to rest, Her steam is up and her lighters leave, the vessel that takes me west; And never again we two shall meet, as we chance to meet to-night, On the Junk, whose painted eyes gaze forth, in desolate want of sight.
And what is love at its best, but this? Conceived by a passing glance, Nursed and reared in a transient mood, on a drifting Sea of Chance. For rudderless craft are all our loves, among the rocks and the shoals, Well we may know one another's speech, but never each other's souls.
Give here your lips and kiss me again, we have but a moment more, Before we set the sail to the mast, before we loosen the oar. Good-bye to you, and my thanks to you, for the rest you let me share, While this night drifted away to the Past, to join the Nights that Were.
Starlight
O beautiful Stars, when you see me go Hither and thither, in search of love, Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow Serene and fixed in the blue above? O Stars, so golden, it is not so.
But there is a garden I dare not see, There is a place where I fear to go, Since the charm and glory of life to me The brown earth covered there, long ago. O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know.
Hither and thither I wandering go, With aimless haste and wearying fret; In a search for pleasure and love? Not so, Seeking desperately to forget. You see so many, O Stars, you know.
Sampan Song
A little breeze blew over the sea, And it came from far away, Across the fields of millet and rice, All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice, It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice, As upon the deck he lay.
It said, "Oh, idle upon the sea, Awake and with sleep have done, Haul up the widest sail of the prow, And come with me to the rice fields now, She longs, oh, how can I tell you how, To show you your first-born son!"
Song of the Devoted Slave
There is one God: Mahomed his Prophet. Had I his power I would take the topmost peaks of the snow-clad Himalayas, And would range them around your dwelling, during the heats of summer, To cool the airs that fan your serene and delicate presence, Had I the power.
Your courtyard should ever be filled with the fleetest of camels Laden with inlaid armour, jewels and trappings for horses, Ripe dates from Egypt, and spices and musk from Arabia. And the sacred waters of Zem-Zem well, transported thither, Should bubble and flow in your chamber, to bathe the delicate Slender and wayworn feet of my Lord, returning from travel, Had I the power.
Fine woven silk, from the further East, should conceal your beauty, Clinging around you in amorous folds; caressive, silken, Beautiful long-lashed, sweet-voiced Persian boys should, kneeling, serve you, And the floor beneath your sandalled feet should be smooth and golden, Had I the power.
And if ever your clear and stately thoughts should turn to women, Kings' daughters, maidens, should be appointed to your caresses, That the youth and the strength of my Lord might never be wasted In light or sterile love; but enrich the world with his children. Had I the power.
Whilst I should sit in the outer court of the Water Palace To await the time when you went forth, for Pleasure or Warfare, Descending the stairs rose crowned, or armed and arrayed in purple,-- To mark the place where your steps have fallen, and kiss the footprints, Had I the power.
The Singer
The singer only sang the Joy of Life, For all too well, alas! the singer knew How hard the daily toil, how keen the strife, How salt the falling tear; the joys how few.
He who thinks hard soon finds it hard to live, Learning the Secret Bitterness of Things: So, leaving thought, the singer strove to give A level lightness to his lyric strings.
He only sang of Love; its joy and pain, But each man in his early season loves; Each finds the old, lost Paradise again, Unfolding leaves, and roses, nesting doves.
And though that sunlit time flies all too fleetly, Delightful Days that dance away too soon! Its early morning freshness lingers sweetly Throughout life's grey and tedious afternoon.
And he, whose dreams enshrine her tender eyes, And she, whose senses wait his waking hand, Impatient youth, that tired but sleepless lies, Will read perhaps, and reading, understand.
Oh, roseate lips he would have loved to kiss, Oh, eager lovers that he never knew! What should you know of him, or words of his?-- But all the songs he sang were sung for you!
Malaria
He lurks among the reeds, beside the marsh, Red oleanders twisted in His hair, His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh, Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare.
The green and stagnant waters lick His feet, And from their filmy, iridescent scum Clouds of mosquitoes, gauzy in the heat, Rise with His gifts: Death and Delirium.
His messengers: They bear the deadly taint On spangled wings aloft and far away, Making thin music, strident and yet faint, From golden eve to silver break of day.
The baffled sleeper hears th' incessant whine Through his tormented dreams, and finds no rest The thirsty insects use his blood for wine, Probe his blue veins and pasture on his breast.
While far away He in the marshes lies, Staining the stagnant water with His breath, An endless hunger burning in His eyes, A famine unassuaged, whose food is Death.
He hides among the ghostly mists that float Over the water, weird and white and chill, And peasants, passing in their laden boat, Shiver and feel a sense of coming ill.
A thousand burn and die; He takes no heed, Their bones, unburied, strewn upon the plain, Only increase the frenzy of His greed To add more victims to th' already slain.
He loves the haggard frame, the shattered mind, Gloats with delight upon the glazing eye, Yet, in one thing, His cruelty is kind, He sends them lovely dreams before they die;
Dreams that bestow on them their heart's desire, Visions that find them mad, and leave them blest, To sink, forgetful of the fever's fire, Softly, as in a lover's arms, to rest.
Fancy
Far in the Further East the skilful craftsman Fashioned this fancy for the West's delight. This rose and azure Dragon, crouching softly Upon the satin skin, close-grained and white.
And you lay silent, while his slender needles Pricked the intricate pattern on your arm, Combining deftly Cruelty and Beauty, That subtle union, whose child is charm.
Charm irresistible: the lovely something We follow in our dreams, but may not reach. The unattainable Divine Enchantment, Hinted in music, never heard in speech.
This from the blue design exhales towards me, As incense rises from the Homes of Prayer, While the unfettered eyes, allured and rested, Urge the forbidden lips to stoop and share;