~PASSION~

SOME have won a wild delight,
By daring wilder sorrow;
Could I gain thy love to-night,
I'd hazard death to-morrow.

Could the battle-struggle earn
One kind glance from thine eye,
How this withering heart would burn,
The heady fight to try!

Welcome nights of broken sleep,
And days of carnage cold,
Could I deem that thou wouldst weep
To hear my perils told.

Tell me, if with wandering bands
I roam full far away,
Wilt thou to those distant lands
In spirit ever stray?

Wild, long, a trumpet sounds afar;
Bid me--bid me go
Where Seik and Briton meet in war,
On Indian Sutlej's flow.

Blood has dyed the Sutlej's waves
With scarlet stain, I know;
Indus' borders yawn with graves,
Yet, command me go!

Though rank and high the holocaust
Of nations steams to heaven,
Glad I'd join the death-doomed host,
Were but the mandate given.

Passion's strength should nerve my arm,
Its ardour stir my life,
Till human force to that dread charm
Should yield and sink in wild alarm,
Like trees to tempest-strife.

If, hot from war, I seek thy love,
Darest thou turn aside?
Darest thou then my fire reprove,
By scorn, and maddening pride?

No--my will shall yet control
Thy will, so high and free,
And love shall tame that haughty soul--
Yes--tenderest love for me.

I'll read my triumph in thine eyes,
Behold, and prove the change;
Then leave, perchance, my noble prize,
Once more in arms to range.

I'd die when all the foam is up,
The bright wine sparkling high;
Nor wait till in the exhausted cup
Life's dull dregs only lie.

Then Love thus crowned with sweet reward,
Hope blest with fulness large,
I'd mount the saddle, draw the sword,
And perish in the charge!

~MEMORY~

OW I loved you in your sleep,

With the starlight on your hair!

The touch of your lips was sweet,

Aziza whom I adore,

A lay at your slender feet,

And against their soft palms pressed,

I fitted my face to rest.

As winds blow over the sea

From Citron gardens ashore,

Came, through your scented hair,

The breeze of the night to me.

My lips grew arid and dry,

My nerves were tense,

Though your beauty soothe the eye

It maddens the sense.

Every curve of that beauty is known to me,

Every tint of that delicate roseleaf skin,

And these are printed on ever atom of me,

Burnt in on every fibre until I die.

And for this, my sin,

I doubt if ever, though dust I be,

The dust will lose the desire,

The torment and hidden fire,

Of my passionate love for you.

Aziza whom I adore,

My dust will be full of your beauty, as is the blue

And infinite ocean full of the azure sky.

In the light that waxed and waned

Playing about your slumber in silver bars,

As the palm trees swung their feathery fronds athwart the stars,

How quiet and young you were,

Pale as the Champa flowers, violet veined,

That, sweet and fading, lay in your loosened hair.

How sweet you were in your sleep,

With the starlight on your hair!

Your throat thrown backwards, bare,

And touched with circling moonbeams, silver white

On the couch's sombre shade.

O Aziza my one delight,

When Youth's passionate pulses fade,

And his golden heart beats slow,

When across the infinite sky

I see the roseate glow

Of my last, last sunset flare,

I shall send my thoughts to this night

And remember you as I die,

The one thing, among all the things of this earth, found fair.

How sweet you were in your sleep,

With the starlight, silver and sable, across your hair!