No More Learning

At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise--
At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.

He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,
As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;
But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)
That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.

'Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way,
When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play.
They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt--
So stopped to take the message down--and this is what they learnt--

"Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot" twice. The General swore.

"Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before?
"'My Love,' i' faith! 'My Duck,' Gadzooks! 'My darling popsy-wop! '
"Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountaintop? "

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,
As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;
For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband's warning ran:--
"Don't dance or ride with General Bangs--a most immoral man. "

[At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise--
But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes. ]
With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
Some interesting details of the General's private life.

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still,
And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill.

And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):--
"I think we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot! "

All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know
By word or act official who read off that helio.

But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan
They know the worthy General as "that most immoral man. "




THE LAST DEPARTMENT

Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
"What will those luckless millions do? "

None whole or clean, we cry, "or free from stain
Of favour. " Wait awhile, till we attain
The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.

Fear, Favour, or Affection--what are these
To the grim Head who claims our services?
I never knew a wife or interest yet
Delay that pukka step, miscalled "decease";

When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
When idleness of all Eternity
Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury

Transferred to the Eternal Settlement,
Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,
Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.

And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;
And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops
Is subject-matter of his own Report.

These be the glorious ends whereto we pass--
Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was;
And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.

A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
A draught of water, or a horse's fright--
The droning of the fat Sheristadar
Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night

For you or Me. Do those who live decline
The step that offers, or their work resign?
Trust me, Today's Most Indispensables,
Five hundred men can take your place or mine.




OTHER VERSES




RECESSIONAL
(A Victorian Ode)

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies--
The Captains and the Kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away--
On dune and headland sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law--

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.

For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.




THE VAMPIRE

The verses--as suggested by the painting by Philip Burne Jones, first
exhibited at the new gallery in London in 1897.

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I! )
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I! )

Oh the years we waste and the tears we waste
And the work of our head and hand,
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand.

A fool there was and his goods he spent
(Even as you and I! )
Honor and faith and a sure intent
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
(Even as you and I! )

Oh the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned,
Belong to the woman who didn't know why
(And now we know she never knew why)
And did not understand.

The fool we stripped to his foolish hide
(Even as you and I! )
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside--
(But it isn't on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died--
(Even as you and I! )

And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame
That stings like a 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 "thirteen-
two";

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 champagne--
Fly to sixes and to sevens,
Wheel and thunder back again;
And when all was peace and order
Save one planet nailed askew,
Much I wept because my warder
Would not let me set it true.

After frenzied hours of waiting,
When the Earth and Skies were dumb,
Pealed an awful voice dictating
An interminable sum,
Changing to a tangle story--
"What she said you said I said"--
Till the Moon arose in glory,
And I found her. . . in my head;

Then a Face came, blind and weeping,
And It couldn't wipe its eyes,
And It muttered I was keeping
Back the moonlight from the skies;
So I patted it for pity,
But it whistled shrill with wrath,
And a huge black Devil City
Poured its peoples on my path.

So I fled with steps uncertain
On a thousand-year long race,
But the bellying of the curtain
Kept me always in one place;
While the tumult rose and maddened
To the roar of Earth on fire,
Ere it ebbed and sank and saddened
To a whisper tense as wire.

In tolerable stillness
Rose one little, little star,
And it chuckled at my illness,
And it mocked me from afar;
And its brethren came and eyed me,
Called the Universe to aid,
Till I lay, with naught to hide me,
'Neath the Scorn of All Things Made.

Dun and saffron, robed and splendid,
Broke the solemn, pitying Day,
And I knew my pains were ended,
And I turned and tried to pray;
But my speech was shattered wholly,
And I wept as children weep.

Till the dawn-wind, softly, slowly,
Brought to burning eyelids sleep.




MY RIVAL

I go to concert, party, ball--
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.

The incense that is mine by right
They burn before her shrine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,
My color comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose.

But She is white where white should be,
And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen
Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had Her constant cheek;
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.

I'm very gauche and very shy,
Her jokes aren't in my line;
And, worst of all, I'm seventeen
While She is forty-nine.

The young men come, the young men go
Each pink and white and neat,
She's older than their mothers, but
They grovel at Her feet.

They walk beside Her 'rickshaw wheels--
None ever walk by mine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.

She rides with half a dozen men,
(She calls them "boys" and "mashers")
I trot along the Mall alone;
My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don't help to fill my programme-card,
And vainly I repine
From ten to two A. M. Ah me!
Would I were forty-nine!

She calls me "darling," "pet," and "dear,"
And "sweet retiring maid. "
I'm always at the back, I know,
She puts me in the shade.

She introduces me to men,
"Cast" lovers, I opine,
For sixty takes to seventeen,
Nineteen to forty-nine.

But even She must older grow
And end Her dancing days,
She can't go on forever so
At concerts, balls and plays.

One ray of priceless hope I see
Before my footsteps shine;
Just think, that She'll be eighty-one
When I am forty-nine.




THE LOVERS' LITANY

Eyes of grey--a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.

Sing, for Faith and Hope are high--
None so true as you and I--
Sing the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die! "

Eyes of black--a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse near the wheel
In the brilliant tropic night.

Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
Stars that sweep and wheel and fly,
Hear the Lovers' Litany:
Love like ours can never die! "

Eyes of brown--a dusty plain
Split and parched with heat of June,
Flying hoof and tightened rein,
Hearts that beat the old, old tune.

Side by side the horses fly,
Frame we now the old reply
Of the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die! "

Eyes of blue--the Simla Hills
Silvered with the moonlight hoar;
Pleading of the waltz that thrills,
Dies and echoes round Benmore.

"Mabel," "Officers," "Goodbye,"
Glamour, wine, and witchery--
On my soul's sincerity,
"Love like ours can never die! "

Maidens of your charity,
Pity my most luckless state.
Four times Cupid's debtor I--
Bankrupt in quadruplicate.

Yet, despite this evil case,
And a maiden showed me grace,
Four-and-forty times would I
Sing the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die! "




A BALLAD OF BURIAL

("Saint @Proxed's ever was the Church for peace")

If down here I chance to die,
Solemnly I beg you take
All that is left of "I"
To the Hills for old sake's sake,
Pack me very thoroughly
In the ice that used to slake
Pegs I drank when I was dry--
This observe for old sake's sake.

To the railway station hie,
There a single ticket take
For Umballa--goods-train--I
Shall not mind delay or shake.

I shall rest contentedly
Spite of clamor coolies make;
Thus in state and dignity
Send me up for old sake's sake.

Next the sleepy Babu wake,
Book a Kalka van "for four. "
Few, I think, will care to make
Journeys with me any more
As they used to do of yore.

I shall need a "special" break--
Thing I never took before--
Get me one for old sake's sake.

After that--arrangements make.

No hotel will take me in,
And a bullock's back would break
'Neath the teak and leaden skin
Tonga ropes are frail and thin,
Or, did I a back-seat take,
In a tonga I might spin,--
Do your best for old sake's sake.

After that--your work is done.

Recollect a Padre must
Mourn the dear departed one--
Throw the ashes and the dust.

Don't go down at once. I trust
You will find excuse to "snake
Three days' casual on the bust. "
Get your fun for old sake's sake.

I could never stand the Plains.
Think of blazing June and May
Think of those September rains
Yearly till the Judgment Day!
I should never rest in peace,
I should sweat and lie awake.

Rail me then, on my decease,
To the Hills for old sake's sake.




DIVIDED DESTINIES

It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine,
And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine,
And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke,
I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke.

He said: "O man of many clothes! Sad crawler on the Hills!
Observe, I know not Ranken's shop, nor Ranken's monthly bills;
I take no heed to trousers or the coats that you call dress;
Nor am I plagued with little cards for little drinks at Mess.

"I steal the bunnia's grain at morn, at noon and eventide,
(For he is fat and I am spare), I roam the mountain side,
I follow no man's carriage, and no, never in my life
Have I flirted at Peliti's with another Bandar's wife.

"O man of futile fopperies--unnecessary wraps;
I own no ponies in the hills, I drive no tall-wheeled traps;
I buy me not twelve-button gloves, 'short-sixes' eke, or rings,
Nor do I waste at Hamilton's my wealth on 'pretty things. '

"I quarrel with my wife at home, we never fight abroad;
But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact I am her only lord.

I never heard of fever--dumps nor debts depress my soul;
And I pity and despise you! " Here he poached my breakfast-roll.

His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red,
And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head.
His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried
To be an artless Bandar loose upon the mountain side!

So I answered: "Gentle Bandar, an inscrutable Decree
Makes thee a gleesome fleasome Thou, and me a wretched Me.
Go! Depart in peace, my brother, to thy home amid the pine;
Yet forget not once a mortal wished to change his lot for thine. "




THE MASQUE OF PLENTY

Argument. --The Indian Government being minded to discover the economic
condition of their lands, sent a Committee to inquire into it; and saw that it
was good.

Scene. --The wooded heights of Simla. The Incarnation of
the Government of India in the raiment of the Angel of Plenty
sings, to pianoforte accompaniment:--

"How sweet is the shepherd's sweet life!
From the dawn to the even he strays--
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

(adagio dim. ) Filled with praise! "

(largendo con sp. ) Now this is the position,
Go make an inquisition
Into their real condition
As swiftly as ye may.

(p) Ay, paint our swarthy billions
The richest of vermillions
Ere two well-led cotillions
Have danced themselves away.

Turkish Patrol, as able and intelligent Investigators wind
down the Himalayas:--

What is the state of the Nation? What is its occupation?
Hi! get along, get along, get along--lend us the information!
(dim. ) Census the byle and the yabu--capture a first-class Babu,
Set him to file Gazetteers--Gazetteers. . .

(ff) What is the state of the Nation, etc. , etc.

Interlude, from Nowhere in Particular, to stringed and Oriental
instruments.

Our cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear--
The earth is iron and the skies are brass--
And faint with fervour of the flaming air
The languid hours pass.

The well is dry beneath the village tree--
The young wheat withers ere it reach a span,
And belts of blinding sand show cruelly
Where once the river ran.

Pray, brothers, pray, but to no earthly King--
Lift up your hands above the blighted grain,
Look westward--if they please, the Gods shall bring
Their mercy with the rain.

Look westward--bears the blue no brown cloud-bank?
Nay, it is written--wherefore should we fly?
On our own field and by our cattle's flank
Lie down, lie down to die!

Semi-Chorus

By the plumed heads of Kings
Waving high,
Where the tall corn springs
O'er the dead.

If they rust or rot we die,
If they ripen we are fed.

Very mighty is the power of our Kings!

Triumphal return to Simla of the Investigators, attired after
the manner of Dionysus, leading a pet tiger-cub in wreaths
of rhubarb-leaves, symbolical of India under medical treatment.
They sing:--

We have seen, we have written--behold it, the proof of our manifold toil!
In their hosts they assembled and told it--the tale of the Sons of the Soil.

We have said of the Sickness--"Where is it? "--and of Death--"It is far from
our ken,"--
We have paid a particular visit to the affluent children of men.

We have trodden the mart and the well-curb--we have stooped to the field and
the byre;
And the King may the forces of Hell curb for the People have all they desire!

Castanets and step-dance:--

Oh, the dom and the mag and the thakur and the thag,
And the nat and the brinjaree,
And the bunnia and the ryot are as happy and as quiet
And as plump as they can be!

Yes, the jain and the jat in his stucco-fronted hut,
And the bounding bazugar,
By the favour of the King, are as fat as anything,
They are--they are--they are!

Recitative, Government of India, with white satin wings and electro-plated
harp:--

How beautiful upon the Mountains--in peace reclining,
Thus to be assured that our people are unanimously dining.

And though there are places not so blessed as others in natural advantages,
which, after all, was only to be expected,
Proud and glad are we to congratulate you upon the work you have thus ably
effected.

(Cres. ) How be-ewtiful upon the Mountains!

Hired Band, brasses only, full chorus:--

God bless the Squire
And all his rich relations
Who teach us poor people
We eat our proper rations--
We eat our proper rations,
In spite of inundations,
Malarial exhalations,
And casual starvations,
We have, we have, they say we have--
We have our proper rations!

Chorus of the Crystallised Facts

Before the beginning of years
There came to the rule of the State
Men with a pair of shears,
Men with an Estimate--
Strachey with Muir for leaven,
Lytton with locks that fell,
Ripon fooling with Heaven,
And Temple riding like H--ll!
And the bigots took in hand
Cess and the falling of rain,
And the measure of sifted sand
The dealer puts in the grain--
Imports by land and sea,
To uttermost decimal worth,
And registration--free--
In the houses of death and of birth.

And fashioned with pens and paper,
And fashioned in black and white,
With Life for a flickering taper
And Death for a blazing light--
With the Armed and the Civil Power,
That his strength might endure for a span--
From Adam's Bridge to Peshawur,
The Much Administered Man.

In the towns of the North and the East,
They gathered as unto rule,
They bade him starve his priest
And send his children to school.

Railways and roads they wrought,
For the needs of the soil within;
A time to squabble in court,
A time to bear and to grin.

And gave him peace in his ways,
Jails--and Police to fight,
Justice--at length of days,
And Right--and Might in the Right.

His speech is of mortgaged bedding,
On his kine he borrows yet,
At his heart is his daughter's wedding,
In his eye foreknowledge of debt.

He eats and hath indigestion,
He toils and he may not stop;
His life is a long-drawn question
Between a crop and a crop.




THE MARE'S NEST

Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
Was very, very bad indeed.

He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced--but this she did not know.

For Belial Machiavelli kept
The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly--thirteen-two and bay
Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.

She was so good, she made him worse;
(Some women are like this, I think;)
He taught her parrot how to curse,
Her Assam monkey how to drink.

He vexed her righteous soul until
She went up, and he went down hill.

Then came the crisis, strange to say,
Which turned a good wife to a better.

A telegraphic peon, one day,
Brought her--now, had it been a letter
For Belial Machiavelli, I
Know Jane would just have let it lie.

But 'twas a telegram instead,
Marked "urgent," and her duty plain
To open it. Jane Austen read:
"Your Lilly's got a cough again.
Can't understand why she is kept
At your expense. " Jane Austen wept.

It was a misdirected wire.
Her husband was at Shaitanpore.
She spread her anger, hot as fire,
Through six thin foreign sheets or more.

Sent off that letter, wrote another
To her solicitor--and mother.

Then Belial Machiavelli saw
Her error and, I trust, his own,
Wired to the minion of the Law,
And traveled wifeward--not alone.

For Lilly--thirteen-two and bay--
Came in a horse-box all the way.

There was a scene--a weep or two--
With many kisses. Austen Jane
Rode Lilly all the season through,
And never opened wires again.

She races now with Belial. This
Is very sad, but so it is.




POSSIBILITIES

Ay, lay him 'neath the Simla pine--
A fortnight fully to be missed,
Behold, we lose our fourth at whist,
A chair is vacant where we dine.

His place forgets him; other men
Have bought his ponies, guns, and traps.
His fortune is the Great Perhaps
And that cool rest-house down the glen,

Whence he shall hear, as spirits may,
Our mundane revel on the height,
Shall watch each flashing 'rickshaw-light
Sweep on to dinner, dance, and play.

Benmore shall woo him to the ball
With lighted rooms and braying band;
And he shall hear and understand
"Dream Faces" better than us all.

For, think you, as the vapours flee
Across Sanjaolie after rain,
His soul may climb the hill again
To each field of victory.

Unseen, who women held so dear,
The strong man's yearning to his kind
Shall shake at most the window-blind,
Or dull awhile the card-room's cheer.

@In his own place of power unknown,
His Light o' Love another's flame,
And he an alien and alone!

Yet may he meet with many a friend--
Shrewd shadows, lingering long unseen
Among us when "God save the Queen"
Shows even "extras" have an end.

And, when we leave the heated room,
And, when at four the lights expire,
The crew shall gather round the fire
And mock our laughter in the gloom;

Talk as we talked, and they ere death--
Flirt wanly, dance in ghostly-wise,
With ghosts of tunes for melodies,
And vanish at the morning's breath.




CHRISTMAS IN INDIA

Dim dawn behind the tamarisks--the sky is saffron-yellow--
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.

Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers o'er the earth;
And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry--
What part have India's exiles in their mirth?

Full day behind the tamarisks--the sky is blue and staring--
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.

Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly--
Call on Rama--he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And today we bid "good Christian men rejoice! "

High noon behind the tamarisks--the sun is hot above us--
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner--those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!

Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was cheap--wherefore we sold it.
Gold was good--we hoped to hold it,
And today we know the fulness of our gain.

Grey dusk behind the tamarisks--the parrots fly together--
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether.
That drags us back howe'er so far we roam.

Hard her service, poor her payment--she is ancient, tattered raiment--
India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,
The door is shut--we may not look behind.

Black night behind the tamarisks--the owls begin their chorus--
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day!

Call a truce, then, to our labors--let us feast with friends and
neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.




PAGETT, M. P.

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.

Pagett, M. P. , was a liar, and a fluent liar therewith--
He spoke of the heat of India as the "Asian Solar Myth";
Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay till September.

March came in with the koil. Pagett was cool and gay,
Called me a "bloated Brahmin," talked of my "princely pay. "
March went out with the roses. "Where is your heat? " said he.
"Coming," said I to Pagett, "Skittles! " said Pagett, M. P.

April began with the punkah, coolies, and prickly-heat,--
Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat.
He grew speckled and mumpy--hammered, I grieve to say,
Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way.

May set in with a dust-storm,--Pagett went down with the sun.
All the delights of the season tickled him one by one.
Imprimis--ten day's "liver"--due to his drinking beer;
Later, a dose of fever--slight, but he called it severe.

Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat--
Lowered his portly person--made him yearn to depart.
He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid,"
But seemed to think it a wonder that any one stayed.

July was a trifle unhealthy,--Pagett was ill with fear.
'Called it the "Cholera Morbus," hinted that life was dear.
He babbled of "Eastern Exile," and mentioned his home with tears;
But I haven't seen my children for close upon seven years.

We reached a hundred and twenty once in the Court at noon,
(I've mentioned Pagett was portly) Pagett, went off in a swoon.
That was an end to the business; Pagett, the perjured, fled
With a practical, working knowledge of "Solar Myths" in his head.

And I laughed as I drove from the station, but the mirth died out on my lips
As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their "Eastern trips,"
And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the land,
And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand.




THE SONG OF THE WOMEN

How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman's message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?
Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing,
Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.

Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city,
To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in,
Who dowered us with wealth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing--
"I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing. "

Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her,
But old in grief, and very wise in tears;
Say that we, being desolate, entreat her
That she forget us not in after years;
For we have seen the light, and it were grievous
To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.

By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing
By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring,
When Love in ignorance wept unavailing
O'er young buds dead before their blossoming;
By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed,
In past grim years, declare our gratitude!

By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not,
By fits that found no favor in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
By nameless horrors of the stifling night;
By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!

If she have sent her servants in our pain
If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword;
If she have given back our sick again.
And to the breast the waking lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.

Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings,
And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed,
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
Who have been helpen by her in their need.

All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat
Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.

Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!
Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, manifold, confessed.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free.

Then very softly to her presence move,
And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love! "




A BALLAD OF JAKKO HILL

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.

Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed--an idle hour to kill--
A headless, armless armory
That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait
Through Time and to Eternity!
Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate
With more than Godlike constancy
I cut the date upon a tree--
Here stand the clumsy figures still:
"10-7-85, A. D. "
Damp with the mist of Jakko Hill.

What came of high resolve and great,
And until Death fidelity!
Whose horse is waiting at your gate?
Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?
No Saint's, I swear; and--let me see
Tonight what names your programme fill--
We drift asunder merrily,
As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill.

L'ENVOI.

Princess, behold our ancient state
Has clean departed; and we see
'Twas Idleness we took for Fate
That bound light bonds on you and me.

Amen! Here ends the comedy
Where it began in all good will;
Since Love and Leave together flee
As driven mist on Jakko Hill!




THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS

Too late, alas! the song
To remedy the wrong;--
The rooms are taken from us, swept and
garnished for their fate.
But these tear-besprinkled pages
Shall attest to future ages
That we cried against the crime of it--
too late, alas! too late!

"What have we ever done to bear this grudge? "
Was there no room save only in Benmore
For docket, duftar, and for office drudge,
That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
Must babus do their work on polished teak?
Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?
Was there no other cheaper house to seek?
You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;
And we revolved to divers melodies,
And we were happy but a year ago.

Tonight, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles--
That beamed upon us through the deodars--
Is wan with gazing on official files,
And desecrating desks disgust the stars.

Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights--
Nay! by the witchery of flying feet--
Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights--
By all things merry, musical, and meet--
By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes--
By wailing waltz--by reckless galop's strain--
By dim verandas and by soft replies,
Give us our ravished ball-room back again!

Or--hearken to the curse we lay on you!
The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain,
And murmurs of past merriment pursue
Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain;
And when you count your poor Provincial millions,
The only figures that your pen shall frame
Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions
Danced out in tumult long before you came.

Yea! "See Saw" shall upset your estimates,
"Dream Faces" shall your heavy heads bemuse,
Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates
Our temple; fit for higher, worthier use.
And all the long verandas, eloquent
With echoes of a score of Simla years,
Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment--
Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears.

So shall you mazed amid old memories stand,
So shall you toil, and shall accomplish nought,
And ever in your ears a phantom Band
Shall blare away the staid official thought.

Wherefore--and ere this awful curse he spoken,
Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train,
And give--ere dancing cease and hearts be broken--
Give us our ravished ball-room back again!




THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING-HOUSE

That night, when through the mooring-chains
The wide-eyed corpse rolled free,
To blunder down by Garden Reach
And rot at Kedgeree,
The tale the Hughli told the shoal
The lean shoal told to me.

'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house,
Where sailor-men reside,
And there were men of all the ports
From Mississip to Clyde,
And regally they spat and smoked,
And fearsomely they lied.

They lied about the purple Sea
That gave them scanty bread,
They lied about the Earth beneath,
The Heavens overhead,
For they had looked too often on
Black rum when that was red.

They told their tales of wreck and wrong,
Of shame and lust and fraud,
They backed their toughest statements with
The Brimstone of the Lord,
And crackling oaths went to and fro
Across the fist-banged board.

And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
Who carried on his hairy chest
The maid Ultruda's charm--
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.

And there was Jake Without-the-Ears,
And Pamba the Malay,
And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook,
And Luz from Vigo Bay,
And Honest Jack who sold them slops
And harvested their pay.

And there was Salem Hardieker,
A lean Bostonian he--
Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Finn,
Yank, Dane, and Portuguee,
At Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
They rested from the sea.

Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks,
Collinga knew her fame,
From Tarnau in Galicia
To Juan Bazaar she came,
To eat the bread of infamy
And take the wage of shame.

She held a dozen men to heel--
Rich spoil of war was hers,
In hose and gown and ring and chain,
From twenty mariners,
And, by Port Law, that week, men called
her Salem Hardieker's.

But seamen learnt--what landsmen know--
That neither gifts nor gain
Can hold a winking Light o' Love
Or Fancy's flight restrain,
When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes
On Hans the blue-eyed Dane.

Since Life is strife, and strife means knife,
From Howrah to the Bay,
And he may die before the dawn
Who liquored out the day,
In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
We woo while yet we may.

But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
And laughter shook the chest beneath
The maid Ultruda's charm--
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.

"You speak to Salem Hardieker;
"You was his girl, I know.

"I ship mineselfs tomorrow, see,
"Und round the Skaw we go,
"South, down the Cattegat, by Hjelm,
"To Besser in Saro. "

When love rejected turns to hate,
All ill betide the man.

"You speak to Salem Hardieker"--
She spoke as woman can.
A scream--a sob--"He called me--names! "
And then the fray began.

An oath from Salem Hardieker,
A shriek upon the stairs,
A dance of shadows on the wall,
A knife-thrust unawares--
And Hans came down, as cattle drop,
Across the broken chairs.
* * * * * *

In Anne of Austria's trembling hands
The weary head fell low:--
"I ship mineselfs tomorrow, straight
"For Besser in Saro;
"Und there Ultruda comes to me
"At Easter, und I go--

"South, down the Cattegat--What's here?
"There--are--no--lights--to guide! "
The mutter ceased, the spirit passed,
And Anne of Austria cried
In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
When Hans the mighty died.

Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
But Anne of Austria looted first
The maid Ultruda's charm--
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.




AS THE BELL CLINKS

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.

That was all--the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.
Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.

For my misty meditation, at the second changin'-station,
Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar
Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato,
Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tonga-bar--

Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.

"She was sweet," thought I, "last season, but 'twere surely wild unreason
Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,
When she whispered, something sadly: 'I--we feel your going badly! '"
"And you let the chance escape you? " rapped the rattling tonga-bar.

"What a chance and what an idiot! " clicked the vicious tonga-bar.

Heart of man--oh, heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,
On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car.
But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by,
To "You call on Her tomorrow! "--fugue with cymbals by the bar--

"You must call on Her tomorrow! "--post-horn gallop by the bar.

Yet a further stage my goal on--we were whirling down to Solon,
With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar--
"She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted? "--
"'Would ha' saved a world of trouble! " clashed the busy tonga-bar.

"'Been accepted or rejected! " banged and clanged the tonga-bar.

Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring,
And a hasty thought of sharing--less than many incomes are,
Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would drive at.