Archives: Poems

From the date that the doors of his prep-school close
    On the lonely little son
 He is taught by precept, insult, and blows
    The Things that Are Never Done.
 Year after year, without favour or fear,
    From seven to twenty-two,
 His keepers insist he shall learn the list
    Of the things no fellow can do.
 (They are not so strict with the average Pict
    And it isn’t set to, etc.) 

For this and not for the profit it brings
    Or the good of his fellow-kind
 He is and suffers unspeakable things
    In body and soul and mind.
 But the net result of that Primitive Cult,
    Whatever else may be won,
 Is definite knowledge ere leaving College
    Of the Things that Are Never Done.
 (An interdict which is strange to the Pict
    And was never revealed to, etc.) 

Slack by training and slow by birth,
    Only quick to despise,
 Largely assessing his neighbour’s worth
    By the hue of his socks or ties,
 A loafer-in-grain, his foes maintain,
    And how shall we combat their view
 When, atop of his natural sloth, he holds
    There are Things no Fellow can do?
 (Which is why he is licked from the first by the Pict
    And left at the post by, etc.)

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This came to him by night—the ganja burnt
To powder, and the City sunk in sleep.
Azizun of the Dauri Bagh; the Pearl;
And Hamid Ali of the Delhi Gate 
Were present, when the Muezzin called to prayer 
At midnight from the Mosque of Wuzeer Khan, 
Drinking the ganja, drowsy with its fumes
Above the dying chillam. I, the Scribe,
Was with them and the words I write are true; 
(Albeit Hamid spoke against the Twelve 
And Islam and the Prophet. God is judge 
Whether the ganja moved him or his soul.)

Azizun's anklets tinkled when she turned 
In slumber; and the Pearl of Courtezans 
Laughed softly at some fancy of her brain, 
Born of the ganja. Hamid Ali lay
As dead upon the cushions by the door
For half a watch; and then he cried to me:— 
"The thing is hopeless and an idle dream!
I saw it even now. O Moulvie!  write!"
(Before the Perfect Flower had dulled our brains, 
Azizun; Hamid Ali; I; the Pearl,
Spoke of the Prophet and the other Christ
Our rulers worship; and men's minds in Roum; 
And whether Islam shall arise again
And drive the Christ across the Western sea 
As people hold shall be in two more years, 
When from the North the Armies of the North 
Pour like the Indus and our rulers fly,
And Islam and the Sword make all things clean.) 

I wrote—my brain was heavy with the drug:—
"The Mosque has fallen. Hamid Ali saw 
The kashi on the gateways peel and flake; 
The domes sink inwards and the minarets
Break at the base and crumble like the dust: 
The wind uplifts in Sind and leaves again 
No bigger than an ant-hill. It has fallen.
I, Hamid, saw and knew the meaning. Turn,
Turn ye to slumber. Fold your hands and sleep. 
Ours was an idle dream." The Pearl laughed low:—
"I dreamt no dream but ye. My breasts are real;
My lips; my love, O Hamid! Nothing else, 
Nor Islam nor the Prophet nor the Twelve.
Turn ye to slumber. Fold your hands and sleep."
      And Hamid answered:— "Fold your hands and sleep 
Not yet till ye have heard the vision. Write!"
(I wrote and marvelled, as the Muezzin called.) 
"Nor Islam, nor the Prophet, nor the Twelve, 
Nor Christ, nor Buddha, nor the other gods
Avail us. Lo! The Mosque fell into dust;
And with it fell the Prophet and the Twelve;
The Banner and the Crescent rang below,
And with them fell the Cross, the Wheel, the Flowers; 
Parvati broken at the waist, and He,
The calm-eyed Buddha, handless, crushed and maimed. 
The Priests with these. I, Hamid, saw them fall
And knew our dream was hopeless. Never more
The Banner or the Cross will lift themselves. 
(Write, Moulvie) Underneath the Seven Stars, 
Blood red and golden, to the dark plain's verge 
There swept the sharp edge of a monstrous sword 
That lit the firmament as does the sun;
And blood was falling from the haft and point; 
And where it fell the Mosques of all the lands 
Fell also, burnt with fire; and the Priests
Cried to the Heavens that their gods were dead, 
And none remained to feed their ministers
Or tend the altars; and the great sword fell 
Above Mahomet and the other men,
And broke into ten thousand drops of blood
Before it faded and I woke to you, 
Azizun and the Pearl. I, Hamid, saw 
And read the meaning of the vision!"
                                                            Soft
The anklets tinkled as Azizun woke
Then Hamid hollow-eyed rose from the couch 
And staggered doorward—but the Pearl withstood 
And only laughed:—"Oh, Hamid, will you take
Me for your Prophet if I read the dream?"
And  Hamid  answered;—"Surely. It is writ"—
Whereat the Pearl laughed louder:—"Is it writ?
Who wrote, and wherefore? Let the vision go, 
For I at least am real".
                                   Then the dawn ... 
Swept like a sea into the gully. I,
Still heavy with the ganja, held my peace
And marvelled that a man should so blaspheme ....
God grant it was the ganja. Otherwise
Hamid is lost for ever, with the Pearl.

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 1  
At the eleventh hour he came,
But his wages were the same
As ours who all day long had trod 
The wine-press of the Wrath of God.
2 
When he shouldered through the lines 
Of our cropped and mangled vines,
His unjaded eye could scan 
How each hour had marked its man.
3 
(Children of the morning-tide 
With the hosts of noon had died,
And our noon contingents lay 
Dead with twilight's spent array.)
4 
Since his back had felt no load, 
Virtue still in him abode
So he swiftly made his own 
Those last spoils we had not won.
5 
We went home delivered thence,
Grudging him no recompense 
Till he portioned praise of blame 
To our works before he came.
6 
Till he showed us for our good–
Deaf to mirth, and blind to scorn–
How we might have best withstood
Burdens that he had not borne! 

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1 
NOT in the thick of the fight, 
  Not in the press of the odds, 
Do the heroes come to their height, 
  Or we know the demi-gods.  
2 
That stands over till peace. 
  We can only perceive 
Men returned from the seas, 
  Very grateful for leave.  
3 
They grant us sudden days 
  Snatched from their business of war; 
But we are too close to appraise 
  What manner of men they are.  
4 
And, whether their names go down 
  With age-kept victories, 
Or whether they battle and drown 
  Unreckoned, is hid from our eyes.  
5 
They are too near to be great, 
  But our children shall understand 
When and how our fate 
  Was changed, and by whose hand.  
6 
Our children shall measure their worth. 
  We are content to be blind . . . 
But we know that we walk on a new-born earth 
  With the saviours of mankind.

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Nothing in life has been made by man for man's using 
But it was shown long since to man in ages 
Lost as the name of the maker of it, 

Who received oppression and shame for his wages - 
Hate, avoidance, and scorn in his daily dealings - 
Until he perished, wholly confounded.  

More to be pitied than he are the wise 
Souls which foresaw the evil of loosing 
Knowledge or Art before time, and aborted 
Noble devices and deep-wrought healings,
Lest offence should arise. 

Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be
  thwarted,
Neither advanced, at the price of a world nor a soul,
  and its Prophet 
Comes through the blood of the vanguards who
  dreamed - too soon - it had sounded.

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“To-tschin-shu is condemned to death.
How can he drink tea with the Executioner?” 
—Japanese Proverb

1 
The eldest son bestrides him,
And the pretty daughter rides him,
And I meet him oft o’ mornings on the Course;
And there kindles in my bosom
An emotion chill and gruesome
As I canter past the Undertaker’s Horse.
2 
Neither shies he nor is restive,
But a hideously suggestive
Trot, professional and placid, he affects;
And the cadence of his hoof-beats
To my mind this grim reproof beats:—
“Mend your pace, my friend, I’m coming. Who’s the next?”
3
Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen,
I have watched the strongest go—men
Of pith and might and muscle—at your heels,
Down the plantain-bordered highway,
(Heaven send it ne’er be my way!)
In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.
4
Answer, sombre beast and dreary,
Where is Brown, the young, the cheery,
Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force?
You were at that last dread dāk
We must cover at a walk,
Bring them back to me, O Undertaker’s Horse!
5
With your mane unhogged and flowing,
And your curious way of going,
And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,
E'en with Beauty on your back, Sir,
Pacing as a lady’s hack, Sir,
What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?
6
It may be you wait your time, Beast,
Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast—
Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass —
Follow after with the others,
Where some dusky heathen smothers
Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.
7
Or, perchance, in years to follow,
I shall watch your plump sides hollow,
See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse—
See old age at last o’erpower you,
And the Station Pack devour you,
I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker’s Horse!
8
But to insult, jibe, and quest, I’ve
Still the hideously suggestive
Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text,
And I hear it hard behind me
In what place soe’er I find me:—
“Sure to catch you sooner or later. Who’s the next?

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One time when ashen clouds received the sun
  And the sea rose beneath us, clamouring
At the wind's wrath, and day was almost done
  We met upon the levels, and heard sing 
A little mother lark—and found her nest
  Among the sodden sedges, while above,
She poured us from the treasury of her breast
  Hiatus of long standing....
And for an instant both our hearts were stirred
  To the same music, and our souls were one
And to her lips my own hot lips were set—
  Then close behind us dropped the mother bird,
And either heart drew back to dwell alone—
  And bitterly each soul cried out 'Not Yet'—

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JUNE

NO HOPE, no change! The clouds have shut us in,
And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down
Full on the bosom of the tortured Town,
Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin
That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease,
And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite
Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light
The torment of the uncomplaining trees.

Far off, the Thunder bellows her despair
To echoing Earth, thrice parched. The lightnings fly
In vain. No help the heaped-up clouds afford,
But wearier weight of burdened, burning air.
What truce with Dawn? Look, from the aching sky,
Day stalks, a tyrant with a flaming sword!

SEPTEMBER

AT DAWN there was a murmur in the trees.
A ripple on the tank, and in the air
Presage. of coming coolness-everywhere
A voice of prophecy upon the breeze.
Up leapt the Sun and smote the dust to gold,
And strove to parch anew the heedless land,
All impotently, as a King grown old
Wars for the Empire crumbling neath his hand.

One after one the lotos-petals fell,
Beneath the onslaught of the rebel year,
In mutiny against a furious sky;
And far-off Winter whispered:—“It is well!
“Hot Summer dies. Behold your help is near,
“For when men’s need is sorest, then come I.”