Past and Future
The new hath come and now the old retires: And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to
Alabaster
LIKE this alabaster box whose art Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart, Carven with delicate dreams and wrought With many a subtle and exquisite thought. Therein I treasure the spice and scent
To My Fairy Fancies
NAY, no longer I may hold you, In my spirit’s soft caresses, Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you In the tangles of my tresses. Fairy fancies, fly away To the white cloud-wildernesses, Fly away! Nay,
To India
O YOUNG through all thy immemorial years! Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom, And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres, Beget new glories from thine ageless womb! The nations that in fettered
THE INDIAN GIPSY
IN tattered robes that hoard a glittering trace Of bygone colours, broidered to the knee, Behold her, daughter of a wandering race, Tameless, with the bold falcon’s agile grace, And the lithe tiger’s sinuous
Corn Grinders
O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In
Coromandel Fishers
Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light, The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. Come, let us gather our
Humayun To Zobeida (From the Urdu)
You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn, Your sweetness in the nightingale, your white – ness in the swan. You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like
Autumn Song
Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow, The sunset hangs on a cloud; A golden storm of glittering sheaves, Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, The wild wind blows in a
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace
Men say the world is full of fear and hate, And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await The restless sickle of relentless fate. But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born, When from the
The Royal Tombs Of Golconda
I MUSE among these silent fanes Whose spacious darkness guards your dust; Around me sleep the hoary plains That hold your ancient wars in trust. I pause, my dreaming spirit hears, Across the wind’s
Street Cries
WHEN dawn’s first cymbals beat upon the sky, Rousing the world to labour’s various cry, To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain, From ardent toil to forge a little gain, And fasting