These were my companions. Pity 'twas they died! (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_') Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride. (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red, Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead. Here's an end of every trail--and here my hosts are fed! THE CAPTIVE Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining. When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them, He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them. Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him, Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him. Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow-- Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow, Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded, Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded. Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story, And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving-- But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving. So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture-- Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture-- Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed. But on him be the Peace and the Blessing; for he was great-hearted! THE PUZZLER The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo, His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do, And can logically predicate his finish by his start; But the English--ah, the English--they are quite a race apart. Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw. They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw, But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that they were fed with-- They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with. For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done. Yes, sometimes in a smoking-room, through clouds of 'Ers' and 'Ums,' Obliquely and by inference illumination comes, On some step that they have taken, or some action they approve-- Embellished with the _argot_ of the Upper Fourth Remove. In telegraphic sentences, half nodded to their friends, They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends. And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall, The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all! HADRAMAUTI Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason? What are his measures and balances? Which is his season For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him When he arises to smite us? _I_ do not love him.