Songs from Books Part 9

Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless.

So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping-- The Avenger of Blood on his track--I took him in keeping.

Demanding not whom he had slain, I refreshed him, I fed him As he were even a brother. But Eblis had bred him.

He was the son of an ape, ill at ease in his clothing, He talked with his head, hands and feet. I endured him with loathing.

Whatever his spirit conceived his countenance showed it As a frog shows in a mud-puddle. Yet I abode it!

I fingered my beard and was dumb, in silence confronting him.

_His_ soul was too shallow for silence, e'en with Death hunting him.

I said: 'Tis his weariness speaks,' but, when he had rested, He chirped in my face like some sparrow, and, presently, jested!

Wherefore slew I that stranger? He brought me dishonour.

I saddled my mare, Bijli, I set him upon her.

I gave him rice and goat's flesh. He bared me to laughter.

When he was gone from my tent, swift I followed after, Taking my sword in my hand. The hot wine had filled him.

Under the stars he mocked me--therefore I killed him!

CHAPTER HEADINGS

THE NAULAHKA

We meet in an evil land That is near to the gates of h.e.l.l.

I wait for thy command To serve, to speed or withstand.

And thou sayest, I do not well?

Oh Love, the flowers so red Are only tongues of flame, The earth is full of the dead, The new-killed, restless dead.

There is danger beneath and o'erhead, And I guard thy gates in fear Of peril and jeopardy, Of words thou canst not hear, Of signs thou canst not see-- And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?

This I saw when the rites were done, And the lamps were dead and the G.o.ds alone, And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone-- Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see, And the G.o.ds of the East made mouths at me.

Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'

Beat off in our last fight were we?

The greater need to seek the sea.

For Fortune changeth as the moon To caravel and picaroon.

Then Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho!

Whichever wind may meetest blow.

Our quarry sails on either sea, Fat prey for such bold lads as we.

And every sun-dried buccaneer Must hand and reef and watch and steer.

And bear great wrath of sea and sky Before the plate-s.h.i.+ps wallow by.

Now, as our tall bows take the foam, Let no man turn his heart to home, Save to desire treasure more, And larger warehouse for his store, When treasure won from Santos Bay Shall make our sea-washed village gay.

Because I sought it far from men, In deserts and alone, I found it burning overhead, The jewel of a Throne.

Because I sought--I sought it so And spent my days to find-- It blazed one moment ere it left The blacker night behind.

When a lover hies abroad.

Looking for his love, Azrael smiling sheathes his sword, Heaven smiles above.

Earth and sea His servants be, And to lesser compa.s.s round, That his love be sooner found.

There was a strife 'twixt man and maid-- Oh that was at the birth of time!

But what befell 'twixt man and maid, Oh that's beyond the grip of rhyme.

'Twas, 'Sweet, I must not bide with you,'

And 'Love, I cannot bide alone'; For both were young and both were true, And both were hard as the nether stone.

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 s.h.i.+ne 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-face 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.

We be the G.o.ds of the East-- Older than all-- Masters of Mourning and Feast How shall we fall?

Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer Or yearn to your song?

And we--have we nothing to offer Who ruled them so long-- In the fume of the incense, the clash of the cymbal, the blare of the conch and the gong?

Over the strife of the schools Low the day burns-- Back with the kine from the pools Each one returns To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the _tulsi_ is trimmed in the urns.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

So we settled it all when the storm was done As comfy as comfy could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three, And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot Because he was five and a man; And that's how it all began, my dears, And that's how it all began.

'If I have taken the common clay And wrought it cunningly In the shape of a G.o.d that was digged a clod, The greater honour to me.'

'If thou hast taken the common clay, And thy hands be not free From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil The greater shame to thee.'