wall are paling,
The mountains in the evening light are red,
The moon has dropped into the moat from heaven,
A spell barbaric over all is spread.
But what is that to him, a stranger lonely,
In a land strange to all his faith and dim?
He cares not for old splendours, he would only
Hear on the air a simple Sabbath hymn.

The paddy-birds their snowy flight are taking
From the tall tamarind unto their nest,
The bullock-carts along the road are creaking,
The bugles o'er the wall are sounding rest.
On a calm jetty looking off to Mecca
Sons of Mahomet watch the low day's rim.
He too is waiting for it--with an echo
Upon his lips of a believer's hymn.

The red gate-towers rise against the twilight,
The palace of the heathen king is hid,
The white bridge bent across the moat beside it
Seems now of all unholinesses rid.
He wishes it were so with all this city
Whose Buddha-built pagodas skyward swim;
But he can only gaze on them and pity--
And sing within his heart a Christian hymn.

THE PARSEE WOMAN

(_At Bombay_)

Cast me out from among you,
I will not see my child
Laid aloft where the vultures
May clamour for him, wild!
The earth you say is holy,
Not to be soiled by death,
And a Parsee still should hold divine
What Zoroaster saith.

Ay, and so I will hold it,
But see his pale sweet face,
As pure as the palest flower
Left dead in Spring's embrace.
The sun we worship daily
Shrined it for seven years,
Then shall it go to cruel beaks,
There where the sea-wind veers?

No, no, no! tho you send me
A beggar from your door,
You, my lord, whom I honour,
And you, his sisters four,
To whom there have come no children
To make your bosoms feel
How even a thought so full of throe
Can make my sick brain reel.

Ah, you are deaf? you scorn me
And loathe, as a thing defiled?
My lord, I am but a woman
Who longs to see her child
Laid in a tomb, entreasured
Under the shrouding sod.
O would I had never given birth,
Or that earth had no God!

SHAH JEHAN TO MUMTAZ MAHAL

I see as in a pale mirage
The palm that o'er you sways,
The waters of the Jumna wan are beating.
One pearl-cloud, like a far-off Taj,
A dome of grief betrays--
Its beauty as was yours will be too fleeting!

The world is wider than I knew
Now that your face is gone!
While you were here no destiny seemed boundless.
So I am lost and find no clue
To any dusk or