Archives: Poems

There's a convict more in the Central Jail, 
Behind the old mud wall;
There's a lifter less on the Border trail, 
And the Queen's Peace over all,
Dear boys,
The Queen's Peace over all!

For we must bear our leader's blame, 
On us the shame will fall,
If we lift our hand from a fettered land 
And the Queen's Peace over all,
Dear boys,
The Queen's Peace over all!

                              The Running of Shindand

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There were three friends that buried the fourth, 
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes, 
And they went south and east and north—
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.

There were three friends that spoke of the dead—
The strong man fights but the sick man dies—
"And would he were here with us now," they said, 
"The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes."

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There was never a Queen like Balkis,
   From here to the wide world’s end;
But Balkis tailed to a butterfly
   As you would talk to a friend. 

There was never a King like Solomon,
   Not since the world began;
But Solomon talked to a butterfly
   As a man would talk to a man. 

She was Queen of Sabaea—
   And he was Asia’s Lord—
But they both of ’em talked to butterflies
   When they took their walks abroad!

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There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay, 
When the artist's hand is potting it.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay, 
When the poet's pad is blotting it.
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line 
At the Royal Acade-my;
But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese 
When it comes to a well-made Lie.—
To a quite unwreckable Lie, 
To a most impeccable Lie!
To a water-tight,  fire-proof,  angle-iron,  sunk-hinge,  time-lock, steel-faced Lie!
Not a private hansom Lie,
But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
Not a little-place-at-Tooting,  but a country-house-with-shooting
And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.

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There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken any way you please, is bad,
And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks 
No decent soul would think of visiting.
You cannot stop the tide; but, now and then,
You may arrest some rash adventurer,
Who–h'm–will hardly thank you for your pains.


                                                                   Vibart's Moralities

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Then a pile of heads he laid—
      Thirty thousand heaped on high­—	
All to please the Kafir maid
      Where the Oxus rippled by.
Grimly spake Atulla Khan:—
       'Love hath made this thing a Man.'


                                         Oatta's Story .

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The World hath set its heavy yoke 
Upon the old white-bearded folk 
Who strive to please the King.
God's mercy is upon the young, 
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.

                                              The Parable of Chajju Bhagat

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The sky is lead, and our faces are red,
  And the Gates of Hell are opened and riven, 
  And the winds of Hell are loosened and driven, 
  And the dust flies up in the face of Heaven,
And the clouds come down in a fiery sheet, 
  Heavy to raise and hard to be borne.

And the soul of man is turned from his meat, 
  Turned from the trifles for which he has striven, 
  Sick in his body and heavy-hearted,
And his soul flies up like the dust in the street—
  Breaks from his flesh and is gone and departed
Like the blasts that they blow on the cholera-horn.

                                                                            Himalayan

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