Chapter 3

How sweet you were in your sleep, With the starlight on your hair! Your throat thrown backwards, bare, And touched with circling moonbeams, silver white On the couch's sombre shade. O Aziza my one delight, When Youth's passionate pulses fade, And his golden heart beats slow, When across the infinite sky I see the roseate glow Of my last, last sunset flare, I shall send my thoughts to this night And remember you as I die, The one thing, among all the things of this earth, found fair.

How sweet you were in your sleep, With the starlight, silver and sable, across your hair!

The First Lover

As o'er the vessel's side she leant, She saw the swimmer in the sea With eager eyes on her intent, "Come down, come down and swim with me."

So weary was she of her lot, Tired of the ship's monotony, She straightway all the world forgot Save the young swimmer in the sea

So when the dusky, dying light Left all the water dark and dim, She softly, in the friendly night, Slipped down the vessel's side to him.

Intent and brilliant, brightly dark, She saw his burning, eager eyes, And many a phosphorescent spark About his shoulders fall and rise.

As through the hushed and Eastern night They swam together, hand in hand, Or lay and laughed in sheer delight Full length upon the level sand.

"Ah, soft, delusive, purple night Whose darkness knew no vexing moon! Ah, cruel, needless, dawning light That trembled in the sky too soon!"

Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside

The fires that burn on all the hills Light up the landscape grey, The arid desert land distills The fervours of the day.

The clear white moon sails through the skies And silvers all the night, I see the brilliance of your eyes And need no other light.

The death sighs of a thousand flowers The fervent day has slain Are wafted through the twilight hours, And perfume all the plain.

My senses strain, and try to clasp Their sweetness in the air, In vain, in vain; they only grasp The fragrance of your hair.

The plain is endless space expressed; Vast is the sky above, I only feel, against your breast, Infinities of love.

Deserted Gipsy's Song: Hillside Camp

She is glad to receive your turquoise ring, Dear and dark-eyed Lover of mine! I, to have given you everything: Beauty maddens the soul like Wine.

"She is proud to have held aloof her charms, Slender, dark-eyed Lover of mine! But I, of the night you lay in my arms: Beauty maddens the sense like Wine!

"She triumphs to think that your heart is won, Stately, dark-eyed Lover of mine! I had not a thought of myself, not one: Beauty maddens the brain like Wine!

"She will speak you softly, while skies are blue, Dear, deluded Lover of mine! I would lose both body and soul for you: Beauty maddens the brain like Wine!

"While the ways are fair she will love you well, Dear, disdainful Lover of mine! But I would have followed you down to Hell: Beauty maddens the soul like Wine!

"Though you lay at her feet the days to be, Now no longer Lover of mine! You can give her naught that you gave not me: Beauty maddened my soul like Wine!

"When the years have shown what is false or true: Beauty maddens the sight like Wine! You will understand how I cared for you, First and only Lover of mine!"

The Plains

How one loves them These wide horizons; whether Desert or Sea,-- Vague and vast and infinite; faintly clear-- Surely, hid in the far away, unknown "There," Lie the things so longed for and found not, found not, Here.

Only where some passionate, level land Stretches itself in reaches of golden sand, Only where the sea line is joined to the sky-line, clear, Beyond the curve of ripple or white foamed crest,-- Shall the weary eyes Distressed by the broken skies,-- Broken by Minaret, mountain, or towering tree,-- Shall the weary eyes be assuaged,--be assuaged,--and rest.

"Lost Delight"

After the Hazara War

I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms, Where we two lay together in the spring, And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting, This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

That was another spring, and other flowers, Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree, The land rejoiced in other running water, And I rejoiced, because you were with me.

You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded, Your red lips like a living, laughing rose, Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender Now lost to me. Gone whither no man knows.

You lay beside me singing in the sunshine; The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck, Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms, On which the sun could find no flaw or fleck.

I lie alone, beneath the Almond flowers, I hated them to touch you as they fell. And now, who killed you? worse, Ah, worse, who loves you? (My soul is burning as men burn in Hell.)

How I have sought you in the crowded cities! I have been mad, they say, for many days. I know not how I came here, to the valley, What fate has led me, through what doubtful ways.

Somewhere I see my sword has done good service, Some one I killed, who, smiling, used your name, But in what country? Nay, I have forgotten, All thought is shrivelled in my heart's hot flame.

Where are you now, Delight, and where your beauty, Your subtle curls, and laughing, changeful face? Bound, bruised and naked (dear God, grant me patience), And sold in Cabul in the market-place.

I asked of you of all men. Who could tell me? Among so many captured, sold, or slain, What fate was yours? (Ah, dear God, grant me patience, My heart is burnt, is burnt, with fire and pain.)

Oh, lost Delight! my heart is almost breaking, My sword is broken and my feet are sore, The people look at me and say in passing, "He will not leave the village any more."

For as the evening falls, the fever rises, With frantic thoughts careering through the brain, Wild thoughts of you. (Ah, dear God, grant me patience, My soul is hurt beyond all men call pain.)

I lie alone, beneath the Almond blossoms, And see the white snow melting on the hills Till Khorassan is gay with water-courses, Glad with the tinkling sound of running rills,

And well I know that when the fragile petals Fall softly, ere the first green leaves appear, (Ah, for these last few days, God, grant me patience,) Since Delight is not, I shall not be, here!

Unforgotten

Do you ever think of me? you who died Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled, With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled Lying alone, aside, Do you ever think of me, left in the light, From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

I am faithful always: I do not say That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old To lesser kisses are always cold; Had you wished for this in its narrow sense Our love perhaps had been less intense; But as we held faithfulness, you and I, I am faithful always, as you who lie, Asleep for ever, beneath the grass, While the days and nights and the seasons pass,-- Pass away.

I keep your memory near my heart, My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star, Till long life over, I too depart To the infinite night where perhaps you are.

Oh, are you anywhere? Loved so well! I would rather know you alive in Hell Than think your beauty is nothing now, With its deep dark eyes and tranquil brow Where the hair fell softly. Can this be true That nothing, nowhere, exists of you? Nothing, nowhere, oh, loved so well I have _never_ forgotten. Do you still keep Thoughts of me through your dreamless sleep?

Oh, gone from me! lost in Eternal Night, Lost Star of light, Risen splendidly, set so soon, Through the weariness of life's afternoon I dream of your memory yet. My loved and lost, whom I could not save, My youth went down with you to the grave, Though other planets and stars may rise, I dream of your soft and sorrowful eyes And I cannot forget.

Song of Faiz Ulla

Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather, Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent together We, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content.

Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress, We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wine Lessening the fulness of delight,-- Some quivering note of human pain, Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night,

Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hours We spent among the Jasmin flowers.

Story of Lilavanti

They lay the slender body down With all its wealth of wetted hair, Only a daughter of the town, But very young and slight and fair.

The eyes, whose light one cannot see, Are sombre doubtless, like the tresses, The mouth's soft curvings seem to be A roseate series of caresses.

And where the skin has all but dried (The air is sultry in the room) Upon her breast and either side, It shows a soft and amber bloom.

By women here, who knew her life, A leper husband, I am told, Took all this loveliness to wife When it was barely ten years old.

And when the child in shocked dismay Fled from the hated husband's care He caught and tied her, so they say, Down to his bedside by her hair.

To some low quarter of the town, Escaped a second time, she flew; Her beauty brought her great renown And many lovers here she knew,

When, as the mystic Eastern night With purple shadow filled the air, Behind her window framed in light, She sat with jasmin in her hair.

At last she loved a youth, who chose To keep this wild flower for his own, He in his garden set his rose Where it might bloom for him alone.

Cholera came; her lover died, Want drove her to the streets again, And women found her there, who tried To turn her beauty into gain.

But she who in those garden ways Had learnt of Love, would now no more Be bartered in the market place For silver, as in days before.

That former life she strove to change; She sold the silver off her arms, While all the world grew cold and strange To broken health and fading charms.

Till, finding lovers, but no friend, Nor any place to rest or hide, She grew despairing at the end, Slipped softly down a well and died.

And yet, how short, when all is said, This little life of love and tears! Her age, they say, beside her bed, To-day is only fifteen years.

The Garden by the Bridge

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary, The tigers rend alive their quivering prey In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary, Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together Over the carrion in the river bed, Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled, Reiterated with a sad insistence Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper, Are consummated in the river bed; Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings; Poor beasts, and poorer men. Nay, who shall blame them? Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things.

The world is horrible and I am lonely, Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom And find forgetfulness, remembering only Your face beside me in the scented gloom.

Nay, do not shrink! I am not here for passion, I crave no love, only a little rest, Although I would my face lay, lover's fashion, Against the tender coolness of your breast.

I am so weary of the Curse of Living The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears. Surely, if life were any God's free giving, He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears.

Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying, Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past. Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing, But know that death _must_ win the game at last.

As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter, The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings,-- As the pink Lotus floats on azure water, Innocent of the mud from whence it springs.

You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow, The fear and pain set close around your way, Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow, Living with joy each hour of glad to-day.

I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet, How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?) So calmly careless of the rush and riot That rages round is seething everywhere.

You do not understand. You think your beauty Does but inflame my senses to desire, Till all you hold as loyalty and duty, Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire.

You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving As though the whole world's sorrow eat my heart, I come to gaze upon your face believing Its beauty is as ointment to the smart.

Lie still and let me in my desolation Caress the soft loose hair a moment's span. Since Loveliness is Life's one Consolation, And love the only Lethe left to man.

Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower, Beside the river where the fireflies pass, One little dusky, all consoling hour Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass

Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender, Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress, Against your heart, so innocent and tender, A little Love and some Forgetfulness.

Fate Knows no Tears

Just as the dawn of Love was breaking Across the weary world of grey, Just as my life once more was waking As roses waken late in May, Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making, Stepped in and carried you away.

Memories have I none in keeping Of times I held you near my heart, Of dreams when we were near to weeping That dawn should bid us rise and part; Never, alas, I saw you sleeping With soft closed eyes and lips apart,

Breathing my name still through your dreaming.-- Ah! had you stayed, such things had been! But Fate, unheeding human scheming, Serenely reckless came between-- Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleaming Unseared by all the sorrow seen.

Ah! well-beloved, I never told you, I did not show in speech or song, How at the end I longed to fold you Close in my arms; so fierce and strong The longing grew to have and hold you, You, and you only, all life long.

They who know nothing call me fickle, Keen to pursue and loth to keep. Ah, could they see these tears that trickle From eyes erstwhile too proud to weep. Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle, While pain and sorrow stand and reap!

Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lie The hopes that rose-like round me grew, The lights are low, and more than lonely This life I lead apart from you. Come back, come back! I want you only, And you who loved me never knew.

You loved me, pleaded for compassion On all the pain I would not share; And I in weary, halting fashion Was loth to listen, long to care; But now, dear God! I faint with passion For your far eyes and distant hair.

Yes, I am faint with love, and broken With sleepless nights and empty days; I want your soft words fiercely spoken, Your tender looks and wayward ways-- Want that strange smile that gave me token Of many things that no man says.

Cold was I, weary, slow to waken Till, startled by your ardent eyes, I felt the soul within me shaken And long-forgotten senses rise; But in that moment you were taken, And thus we lost our Paradise!

Farewell, we may not now recover That golden "Then" misspent, passed by, We shall not meet as loved and lover Here, or hereafter, you and I. My time for loving you is over, Love has no future, but to die.

And thus we part, with no believing In any chance of future years. We have no idle self-deceiving, No half-consoling hopes and fears; We know the Gods grant no retrieving A wasted chance. Fate knows no tears.

Verses: Faiz Ulla

Just in the hush before dawn A little wistful wind is born. A little chilly errant breeze, That thrills the grasses, stirs the trees. And, as it wanders on its way, While yet the night is cool and dark, The first carol of the lark,-- Its plaintive murmurs seem to say "I wait the sorrows of the day."

Two Songs by Sitara, of Kashmir

Beloved! your hair was golden As tender tints of sunrise, As corn beside the River In softly varying hues. I loved you for your slightness, Your melancholy sweetness, Your changeful eyes, that promised What your lips would still refuse.

You came to me, and loved me, Were mine upon the River, The azure water saw us And the blue transparent sky; The Lotus flowers knew it, Our happiness together, While life was only River, Only love, and you and I.

Love wakened on the River, To sounds of running water, With silver Stars for witness And reflected Stars for light; Awakened to existence, With ripples for first music And sunlight on the River For earliest sense of sight.

Love grew upon the River Among the scented flowers, The open rosy flowers Of the Lotus buds in bloom-- Love, brilliant as the Morning, More fervent than the Noon-day, And tender as the Twilight In its blue transparent gloom.

Love died upon the River! Cold snow upon the mountains, The Lotus leaves turned yellow And the water very grey. Our kisses faint and falter, The clinging hands unfasten, The golden time is over And our passion dies away.

Away. To be forgotten, A ripple on the River, That flashes in the sunset, That flashed,--and died away.

Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

Throb, throb, throb, Far away in the blue transparent Night, On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness, She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat Afar, afloat On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light; Hear the sound of the straining wood Like a broken sob Of a heart's distress, Loving misunderstood.

She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder, On a silken sheet with a purple woven border, Every cell of her brain is latent fire, Every fibre tense with restrained desire. And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer, The boat is approaching nearer, nearer; "How to wait through the moments' space Till I see the light of my lover's face?"

Throb, throb, throb, The sound dies down the stream Till it only clings at the senses' edge Like a half-remembered dream. Doubtless, he in the silence lies, His fair face turned to the tender skies, Starlight touching his sleeping eyes. While his boat caught in the thickset sedge And the waters round it gurgle and sob, Or floats set free on the river's tide, Oars laid aside.

She is awake and knows no rest, Passion dies and is dispossessed Of his brief, despotic power. But the Brain, once kindled, would still be afire Were the whole world pasture to its desire, And all of love, in a single hour,-- A single wine cup, filled to the brim, Given to slake its thirst.

Some there are who are thus-wise cursed Times that follow fulfilled desire Are of all their hours the worst. They find no Respite and reach no Rest, Though passion fail and desire grow dim, No assuagement comes from the thing possessed For possession feeds the fire.

"Oh, for the life of the bright hued things Whose marriage and death are one, A floating fusion on golden wings. Alit with passion and sun!

"But we who re-marry a thousand times, As the spirit or senses will, In a thousand ways, in a thousand climes, We remain unsatisfied still."

As her lover left her, alone, awake she lies, With a sleepless brain and weary, half-closed eyes. She turns her face where the purple silk is spread, Still sweet with delicate perfume his presence shed. Her arms remembered his vanished beauty still, And, reminiscent of clustered curls, her fingers thrill. While the wonderful, Starlit Night wears slowly on Till the light of another day, serene and wan, Pierces the eastern skies.

Palm Trees by the Sea

Love, let me thank you for this! Now we have drifted apart, Wandered away from the sea,-- For the fresh touch of your kiss, For the young warmth of your heart, For your youth given to me.

Thanks: for the curls of your hair, Softer than silk to the hand, For the clear gaze of your eyes. For yourself: delicate, fair, Seen as you lay on the sand, Under the violet skies.

Thanks: for the words that you said,-- Secretly, tenderly sweet, All through the tropical day, Till, when the sunset was red, I, who lay still at your feet, Felt my life ebbing away,

Weary and worn with desire, Only yourself could console. Love let me thank you for this! For that fierce fervour and fire Burnt through my lips to my soul From the white heat of your kiss!

You were the essence of Spring, Wayward and bright as a flame: Though we have drifted apart, Still how the syllables sing Mixed in your musical name, Deep in the well of my heart!

Once in the lingering light, Thrown from the west on the Sea, Laid you your garments aside, Slender and goldenly bright, Glimmered your beauty, set free, Bright as a pearl in the tide.

Once, ere the thrill of the dawn Silvered the edge of the sea, I, who lay watching you rest,-- Pale in the chill of the morn Found you still dreaming of me Stilled by love's fancies possessed.

Fallen on sorrowful days, Love, let me thank you for this, You were so happy with me! Wrapped in Youth's roseate haze, Wanting no more than my kiss By the blue edge of the sea!

Ah, for those nights on the sand Under the palms by the sea, For the strange dream of those days Spent in the passionate land, For your youth given to me, I am your debtor always!

Song by Gulbaz

"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?