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 dawn! Life has become a quest decayed and groundless. Come back! come back or let me find The jungle leads at last Unto your lips and bosom recreated! O somewhere I again must wind My arms about you, cast Into one word my love all unabated! PRINCESS JEHANARA Where the road leads from Delhi to the South, And dingy camel-trains creep in the dust Past ruin-heaps of old Firozabad And Indropat unpitied of the drouth; By a lone tree, above a Pool whose sad Prayer-water all the turban-people trust, Is a heat-hidden tomb, and on it just A few faint blades of bent and grieving grass. "Jehanara's it is," with ready mouth A Moslem tells the stranger, "once she said, 'The covering of the poor is only grass, Let it be mine alone when I am dead.'" And who has stood there, where about her Rest Rise high Imperial tombs, knows hers is best. A SINGHALESE LOVE LAMENT As the cocoanut-palm That pines, my love, Away from the sound Of the planter's voice, Am I, for I hear No more resound Your song by the pearl-strewn sea! The sun may come And the moon wax round, And in its beam My mates may rejoice, But I feast not And my heart is dumb, As I long, O long, for thee! In the jungle-deeps, Where the cobra creeps, The leopard lies In wait for me. But O, my love, When the daylight dies There is more to my dread than he! Harsh lonely tears That assail my eyes Are worse to bear, For the misery That makes them well Is the long, long years That I moan away from thee! O again, again, In my katamaran A-keel would I push To your palmy door! Again would I hear The heave and hush Of your song by the plantain-tree. But far away Do I toil and crush The hopes that arise At my sick heart's core. For never near Does it come, the day That draws me again to thee! ON THE ARABIAN GULF From a far minaret of faithful cloud A wraith-muezzin of the sunset cried Over the sea that swung with sultan pride, "Allah is Beauty, there is none beside! Allah is Beauty, not to be denied By Death or any Infidel dark-browed!"