Archives: Poems

Something wanting in this world—
    What is it? To each and all
Different desires come,
    Tides of longing rise and fall.

Hopes of youth still unfulfilled, 
    Homes that have an empty chair,
Gulfs that gape and pits that balk; 
    Something wanting everywhere.

Can we fill the gap with love,
    Forge the missing link with gold?
Let the heart be ne'er so warm, 
    Still one portion blank and cold.

Broken chords are but our share; 
    Harmony with discord blends;
Fate's dull web but coarsest cloth, 
    Patched with finer odds and ends.

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1 
Cain and Abel were brothers born. 
     (Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
    (Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!) 

And Cain he farmed by the river-side,
So he did not care how much it dried. 

For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led
     (And the Corn don’t care for the Horn)—
A-half Euphrates out of her bed
     To water his dam’ Corn! 

But Abel herded out on the plains
Where you have to go by the dams and rains. 
5 
It happened, after a three-year drought,
The wells, and the springs, and the dams gave out. 

The Herd-bulls came to Cain’s new house
     (They wanted water so!—)
With the hot red Sun between their brows,
Sayin’ “Give us water for our pore cows!”
    But Cain he told ’em—“No!” 

The Cows they came to Cain’s big house
With the cold white Moon between their brows,
Sayin’ “Give some water to us pore cows!”
    But Cain he told ’em—“No?” 

The li’l Calves came to Cain’s fine house
With the Evenin’ Star between their brows,
Sayin’ “Give us water an’ we’ll be cows!”
    But Cain he told ’em—“No!” 

The Herd-bulls led ’em back again,
An’ Abel went an’ said to Cain:—
“Oh, sell me water, my brother dear,
Or there will be no beef this year.”
    And Cain he answered—“No!” 
10 
“Then draw your hatches, my brother true,
An’ let a little water through.”
    But Cain he answered:—“No! 

“My dams are tight an’ my ditches are sound,
An’ not a drop goes through or round
    Till she’s done her duty by the Corn. 

“I will not sell, an’ I will not draw,
An’ if you breach, I’ll have the Law,
     As sure as you are born!” 

Then Abel took his best bull-goad,
An’ holed a dyke on the Eden road. 

He opened her up with foot an’ hand,
An’ let Euphrates loose on the land. 
15 
He spilled Euphrates out on the plain,
So’s all his cattle could drink again. 

Then Cain he saw what Abel done—
But, in those days, there was no Gun! 

So he made him a club of a hickory-limb,
An’ halted Abel an’ said to him:— 

“I did not sell an’ I did not draw,
An’ now you’ve breached I’ll have the Law. 

“You ride abroad in your hat and spurs,
Hell-hoofin’ over my cucumbers! 
20 
“You pray to the Lord to send you luck
An’ you loose your steers in my garden-truck: 

“An’ now you’re bust, as you ought to be,
You can keep on prayin’ but not to me!” 

Then Abel saw it meant the life;
But, in those days, there was no Knife: 

So he up with his big bull-goad instead,
But—Cain hit first and dropped him dead! 

The Herd-bulls ran when they smelt the blood,
An’ horned an’ pawed in that Red Mud.
The Calves they bawled, and the Steers they milled,
Because it was the First Man Killed;—
An’ the whole Herd broke for the Land of Nod, 
An’ Cain was left to be judged by God! 
25 
But, seein’ all he had had to bear, 
I never could call the Judgment fair!

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BY THE Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
So she fell from the light of the Sun
And alone! 

Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
But the Stone
Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks from the light of the Sun
And alone! 

Oh Thou Who has builded the World,
Oh Thou Who has lighted the Sun,
Oh Thou Who has darkened the Tarn,
Judge Thou
The sin of the Stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the Sun,
As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,
Even now—even now—even now!

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I used to take my walks abroad, my friends I dare not see
Where once I used to speak to them, and they would speak to me. 
My friends are ochre, black, and white, I count them by the score;
But till I learn last week's Gazette I may not meet them more.

How runs the  Doctor's newest name, Mahai—? Mahout—? Moham—?
Mohunt—? Mahomedpudmini, Illuminated Sham?
Dewan–i–Khas or Sri  Diwan is Smith unless I err.
No! Smith's Mir Munshi got the Sri, and Smith himself's the Sir.

So Mrs Smith is Lady S. and Jones's wife likewise;
Or was it Jones who finished up the batch of C.S.I.'s? 
Or was he made a 'Rajah Rao'? Alas! my addled brain
Has mixed him with a Borah Shroff.  Bring out the list again!

Smith, B.C.S., K.C.S.I.,  Jones, C.I.E, C.E. 
Brown, Robinson, collectively, K.C.G.M.C.B. 
That's better! Gul Mahommed 'Rao'; Asraf Mahommed 'Rai'; 
And 'Raja' Babu Chatterjee ... or was he C.S.I.?

Once more, though madness hover near, that awful list I scan!
Asraf Mohammed seems to be a 'Rai Bahadured Khan',
And Chatterjee's a 'Shish Mahal', 'tis plain as printers' ink; 
And Pundit Prem Nath Guru Dutt is 'Brevet Thakur Spink'. 

I wonder why, in wriggling fire is limned the Honours roll,
(Sirdar Khansamah!) and my thoughts slip, eel-like, from control. 
Rai, Rao, Dewan, Nawab, C.B., K.C.I.E., Mahout—
Bahadur flash across my brain—a gorgeous golden rout.

What ha! What ho! Why stare ye so, oh Lords and Ladies gay? 
What means the whisper in the air:—'His mind has given way!' 
I am not mad—Rai, Rubee, Rais, Sub Titular Nawab!
Why cramp my limbs with clanking chain; my frame in maniac's garb?

I am not mad. Psst! Shwye ya Min! Daulat—Inglishia D—!
Who said, Sir Knights, I am not mad? Bring on your Dukes'—I am!

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Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
  The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
  Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
  And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
  They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
  And stills the riot of pain and grief,
Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
  Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

"You will find on it whorls and clots of
  Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
  Glorious butterflies raised from the dead." . . .

"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
  The three-dimensioned preacher saith;
So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
  For Psyche's birth.  .  .  .  And that is our death!

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A flash in your eye for a minute—
An answering light in mine.
What was the mischief in it?
Who but we two could divine—

Before those eyelids droop 
Do I read  your riddle—
Well I take it an angel may stoop
Sometimes, to the nether Hell.

We'll argue it this way then
Tho' it sound a trifle inhuman—
I am not your man among men,
Nor you my first dearest woman.

Each touched some hidden chord 
In the other's heart for a minute, 
That sprang into light at a word 
And pulsed with the music in it—

The veil was torn asunder
As I sighed and pleaded and wooed, 
And we saw the truth there under 
As it stands—uncouth and nude.

Now back to the work again—
In the old blind tread-mill fashion—
False hope, false joy, false pain,
Rechauffés of by gone passion!

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1
Sudden the desert changes,
  The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
  Stand up like the thrones of Kings— 
2
Ramparts of slaughter and peril—
  Blazing, amazing, aglow—
’Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl
  And the wine-dark flats below. 
3
Royal the pageant closes,
  Lit by the last of the sun—
Opal and ash-of-roses,
  Cinnamon, umber, and dun. 
4
The twilight swallows the thicket,
  The starlight reveals the ridge.
The whistle shrills to the picket—
  We are changing guard on the bridge. 
5
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
  Where the empty metals shine—
No, not combatants—only
  Details guarding the line.) 
6
We slip through the broken panel
  Of fence by the ganger’s shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
  And the lean track overhead; 
7
We stumble on refuse of rations,
  The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
   And the endless night begins. 
8
We hear the Hottentot herders
  As the sheep click past to the fold—
And the click of the restless girders
  As the steel contracts in the cold—
9
Voices of jackals calling
   And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
  From the flanks of the scarred ravine. 
10
And the solemn firmament marches,
  And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches—
  Banded and barred by the ties, 
11
Till we feel the far track humming,
  And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming—
  The wonderful north-bound train. 
12
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
  Where the white car-windows shine—
No, not combatants—only
  Details guarding the line.) 
13
Quick, ere the gift escape us!
  Out of the darkness we reach
For a handful of week-old papers
  And a mouthful of human speech. 
14
And the monstrous heaven rejoices,
  And the earth allows again,
Meetings, greetings, and voices
  Of women talking with men. 
15
So we return to our places,
  As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
  And the darkness re-enters our souls. 
16
More than a little lonely
  Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No—not combatants—only
  Details guarding the line!

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