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India's Love Lyrics

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Title: India's Love Lyrics

Author: Laurence Hope

 
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8197]
 Most recently updated: September 29, 2023

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8197

Credits: Produced by Gordon Keener, and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS ***

Produced by Gordon Keener

INDIA'S LOVE LYRICS

By Laurence Hope

Editorial note: Laurence Hope was the pen name of Adela Florence Cory
Nicolson. Born in 1865, she was educated in England. At age 16 she
joined her father in India, where she spent most of her adult life. In
1889 she married Col. Malcolm H. Nicolson, a man twice her age. She
committed suicide two months after his death in 1904.

"Less than the Dust"

 Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel,
 Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword,
 Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord,
 Even less than these!

 Less than the weed, that grows beside thy door,
 Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee,
 Less than the need thou hast in life of me.
 Even less am I.

 Since I, O Lord, am nothing unto thee,
 See here thy Sword, I make it keen and bright,
 Love's last reward, Death, comes to me to-night,
 Farewell, Zahir-u-din.

"To the Unattainable"

 Oh, that my blood were water, thou athirst,
 And thou and I in some far Desert land,
 How would I shed it gladly, if but first
 It touched thy lips, before it reached the sand.

 Once,--Ah, the Gods were good to me,--I threw
 Myself upon a poison snake, that crept
 Where my Beloved--a lesser love we knew
 Than this which now consumes me wholly--slept.

 But thou; Alas, what can I do for thee?
 By Fate, and thine own beauty, set above
 The need of all or any aid from me,
 Too high for service, as too far for love.

"In the Early, Pearly Morning":

 Song by Valgovind

 The fields are full of Poppies, and the skies are very blue,
 By the Temple in the coppice, I wait, Beloved, for you.
 The level land is sunny, and the errant air is gay,
 With scent of rose and honey; will you come to me to-day?

 From carven walls above me, smile lovers; many a pair.
 "Oh, take this rose and love me!" she has twined it in her hair.
 He advances, she retreating, pursues and holds her fast,
 The sculptor left them meeting, in a close embrace at last.

 Through centuries together, in the carven stone they lie,
 In the glow of golden weather, and endless azure sky.
 Oh, that we, who have for pleasure so short and scant a stay,
 Should waste our summer leisure; will you come to me to-day?

 The Temple bells are ringing, for the marriage month has come.
 I hear the women singing, and the throbbing of the drum.
 And when the song is failing, or the drums a moment mute,
 The weirdly wistful wailing of the melancholy flute.

 Little life has got to offer, and little man to lose,
 Since to-day Fate deigns to proffer, Oh wherefore, then, refuse
 To take this transient hour, in the dusky Temple gloom
 While the poppies are in flower, and the mangoe trees abloom.

 And if Fate remember later, and come to claim her due,
 What sorrow will be greater than the Joy I had with you?
 For to-day, lit by your laughter, between the crushing years,
 I will chance, in the hereafter, eternities of tears.

Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank

 The Desert is parched in the burning sun
 And the grass is scorched and white.
 But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
 We are camping here to-night.
 I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,
 While the cadenced water evenly falls,
 And a peacock out of the Jungle calls
 To another, on yonder tomb.
 Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,
 Strange works of a long dead people loom,
 Obscene and savage and half effaced--
 An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast--
 And curious matings of man and beast;
 What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?
 Whose fingers traced,
 In this arid waste,
 These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust.

 Strange, weird things that no man may say,
 Things Humanity hides away;--
 Secretly done,--
 Catch the light of the living day,
 Smile in the sun.
 Cruel things that man may not name,
 Naked here, without fear or shame,
 Laughed in the carven stone.

 Deep in the Temple's innermost Shrine is set,
 Where the bats and shadows dwell,
 The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest
 In its oval shell,
 By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed,
 Represented their Great Destroying Power.
 I cannot forget
 That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower,
 Love came and destroyed it all in a single hour,
 Therefore the dual Mystery suits me well.

 Sitting alone,
 The tank's deep water is cool and sweet,
 Soothing and fresh to the wayworn feet,
 Dreaming, under the Tamarind shade,
 One silently thanks the men who made
 So green a place in this bitter land
 Of sunburnt sand.

 The peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo,
 Little green, talkative Parrots woo,
 And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance,
 At alien me, in their furtive glance,
 Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see
 The stranger under their Tamarind tree.
 Daylight dies,
 The Camp fires redden like angry eyes,
 The Tents show white,
 In the glimmering light,
 Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies,
 And the hum of the Camp sounds like the sea,
 Drifting over the sand to me.
 Afar, in the Desert some wild voice sings
 To a jangling zither with minor strings,
 And, under the stars growing keen above,
 I think of the thing that I love.

 A beautiful thing, alert, serene,
 With passionate, dreaming, wistful eyes,
 Dark and deep as mysterious skies,
 Seen from a vessel at sea.
 Alas, you drifted away from me,
 And Time and Space have rushed in between,
 But they cannot undo the Thing-that-has-been,
 Though it never again may be.
 You were mine, from dusk until dawning light,
 For the perfect whole of that bygone night
 You belonged to me!

 They say that Love is a light thing,
 A foolish thing and a slight thing,
 A ripe fruit, rotten at core;
 They speak in this futile fashion
 To me, who am wracked with passion,
 Tormented beyond compassion,
 For ever and ever more.

 They say that Possession lessens a lover's delight,
 As radiant mornings fade into afternoon.
 I held what I loved in my arms for many a night,
 Yet ever the morning lightened the sky too soon.

 Beyond our tents the sands stretch level and far,
 Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees.
 A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breez

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