Last Poems Part 5

Lallji my Desire

"This is no time for saying 'no'"

Were thy last words to me, And yet my lips refused the kiss They might have given thee.

How could I know That thou wouldst go To sleep so far from me?

They took thee to the Burning-Ghat, Oh, Lallji, my desire, And now a faint and lonely flame Uprises from the pyre.

The thin grey smoke in spirals drifts Across the opal sky.

Would that I were a wife of thine, And thus with thee could die!

How could I know That thou wouldst go, Oh, Lallji, my desire?

The lips I missed The flames have kissed Upon the Sandal pyre.

If one should meet me with a knife And cut my heart in twain, Then would he see the smoke arise From every severed vein.

Such is the burning, inward fire, The anguish of my pain, For my Beloved, whose dying lips Implored a kiss--in vain!

How could I know That thou wouldst go, Oh, Lallji, my desire?

Too young thou art To lay thy heart Upon the Sandal pyre.

Thy wife awaits her coming child; What were a child to me, If I might take thee in these arms And face the flames with thee?

The priests are chanting round the pyre, At dusk they will depart And leave to thee thy lonely rest, To me my lonelier heart.

How could I know Thou lovedst me so?

Upon the Sandal pyre He lies forsaken.

The flames have taken My Lallji, my desire!

Rutland Gate

His back is bent and his lips are blue, s.h.i.+vering out in the wet: "Here's a florin, my man, for you, Go and get drunk and forget!"

Right in the midst of a Christian land, Rotted with wealth and ease, Broken and draggled they let him stand Till his feet on the pavement freeze.

G.o.d leaves His poor in His vicars' care, For He hears the church-bells ring, His ears are buzzing with constant prayer And the hymns His people sing.

Can His pity picture the anguish here, Can He see, through a London fog, The man who has worked "nigh seventy year"

To die the death of a dog?

No one heeds him, the crowds pa.s.s on.

Why does he want to live?

"Take this florin, and get you gone, Go and get drunk,--and forgive!"

Atavism

Deep in the jungle vast and dim, That knew not a white man's feet, I smelt the odour of sun-warmed fur, Musky, savage, and sweet.

Far it was from the huts of men And the gra.s.s where Sambur feed; I threw a stone at a Kadapu tree That bled as a man might bleed.

Scent of fur and colour of blood:-- And the long dead instincts rose, I followed the lure of my season's mate,-- And flew, bare-fanged, at my foes.

Pale days: and a league of laws Made by the whims of men.

Would I were back with my furry cubs In the dusk of a jungle den.

Middle-age

The sins of Youth are hardly sins, So frank they are and free.

'T is but when Middle-age begins We need morality.

Ah, pause and weigh this bitter truth: That Middle-age, grown cold, No comprehension has of Youth, No pity for the Old.

Youth, with his half-divine mistakes, She never can forgive, So much she hates his charm which makes Worth while the life we live.

She scorns Old Age, whose tolerance And calm, well-balanced mind (Knowing how crime is born of chance) Can pardon all mankind.

Yet she, alas! has all the power Of strength and place and gold, Man's every act, through every hour, Is by her laws controlled.

All things she grasps with sordid hands And weighs in tarnished scales.

She neither feels, nor understands, And yet her will prevails!

Cold-blooded vice and careful sin, Gold-l.u.s.t, blind selfishness,-- The shortest, cheapest way to win Some, worse than cheap, success.

Such are her attributes and aims, Yet meekly we obey, While she to guide and order claims All issues of the day.

You seek for honour, friends.h.i.+p, truth?

Let Middle-age be banned!

Go, for warm-hearted acts, to Youth; To Age,--to understand!

The Jungle Flower

Ah, the cool silence of the shaded hours, The scent and colour of the jungle flowers!

Thou art one of the jungle flowers, strange and fierce and fair, Palest amber, perfect lines, and scented with champa flower.

Lie back and frame thy face in the gloom of thy loosened hair; Sweet thou art and loved--ay, loved--for an hour.

But thought flies far, ah, far, to another breast, Whose whiteness breaks to the rose of a twin pink flower, Where wind the azure veins that my lips caressed When Fate was gentle to me for a too-brief hour.

There is my spirit's home and my soul's abode, The rest are only inns on the traveller's road.

From Behind the Lattice