Chapter 6

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;

Share in the sweetness of the rose and azure Traced in the Dragon's form upon the white Curve of the arm. Ah, curb thyself, my fancy, Where would'st thou drift in this enchanted flight?

Feroza

The evening sky was as green as Jade, As Emerald turf by Lotus lake, Behind the Kafila far she strayed, (The Pearls are lost if the Necklace break!)

A lingering freshness touched the air From palm-trees, clustered around a Spring, The great, grim Desert lay vast and bare, But Youth is ever a careless thing.

The Raiders threw her upon the sand, Men of the Wilderness know no laws, They tore the Amethysts off her hand, And rent the folds of her veiling gauze.

They struck the lips that they might have kissed, Pitiless they to her pain and fear, And wrenched the gold from her broken wrist, No use to cry; there were none to hear.

Her scarlet mouth and her onyx eyes, Her braided hair in its silken sheen, Were surely meet for a Lover's prize, But Fate dissented, and stepped between.

Across the Zenith the vultures fly, Cruel of beak and heavy of wing. Thus it was written that she should die. Inshallah! Death is a transient thing.

This Month the Almonds Bloom at Kandahar

I hate this City, seated on the Plain, The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar, Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain, This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar.

The Almond-trees, that sheltered my Delight, Screening my happiness as evening fell. It was well worth--that most Enchanted Night-- This life in torment, and the next in Hell!

People are kind to me; one More than Kind, Her lashes lie like fans upon her cheek, But kindness is a burden on my mind, And it is weariness to hear her speak.

For though that Kaffir's bullet holds me here, My thoughts are ever free, and wander far, To where the Lilac Hills rise, soft and clear, Beyond the Almond Groves of Kandahar.

He followed me to Sibi, to the Fair, The Horse-fair, where he shot me weeks ago, But since they fettered him I have no care That my returning steps to health are slow.

They will not loose him till they know my fate, And I rest here till I am strong to slay, Meantime, my Heart's Delight may safely wait Among the Almond blossoms, sweet as they.

That cursed Kaffir! Well, he won by day, But I won, what I so desired, by night, _My_ arms held what his lack till Judgment Day! Also, the game is not yet over--quite!

Wait, Amir Ali, wait till I come forth To kill, before the Almond-trees are green, To raze thy very Memory from the North, _So that thou art not, and thou hast not been!_

Aha! Friend Amir Ali! it is Duty To rid the World from Shiah dogs like thee, They are but ill-placed moles on Islam's beauty, Such as the Faithful cannot calmly see!

Also thy bullet hurts me not a little, Thy Shiah blood might serve to salve the ill. Maybe some Afghan Promises are brittle; Never a Promise to oneself, to kill!

Now I grow stronger, I have days of leisure To shape my coming Vengeance as I lie, And, undisturbed by call of War or Pleasure, Can dream of many ways a man may die.

I shall not torture thee, thy friends might rally, Some Fate assist thee and prove false to me; Oh! shouldst thou now escape me, Amir Ali, This would torment me through Eternity!

Aye, Shuffa-Jan, I will be quiet indeed, Give here the Hakim's powder if thou wilt, And thou mayst sit, for I perceive thy need, And rest thy soft-haired head upon my quilt.

Thy gentle love will not disturb a mind That loves and hates beneath a fiercer Star. Also, thou know'st, my Heart is left behind, Among the Almond-trees of Kandahar!