The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.Williamson, Thomas
History
The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.
Williamson, Thomas
India -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Why, really, if some other parts of the work did not assure us that the
object of adoration possessed every virtue, and every agreeable quality,
the world might be induced, by the foregoing lines, to consider her a
most incorrigible toper! Let not these samples serve for _all_ the poets
of Hindostan, though they may suffice to exhibit that fantastic illusion
which characterizes them in general: some authors, natives of India,
have afforded proofs of genius, such as leave us to lament that their
talents were not duly cultivated and patronized. The following little
canzonet, translated from the poems of Yuqueen, a celebrated Hindostanee
author, happens to lie open before me, seeming to offer itself for
quotation. I think my readers will admit, that, though it does not
indicate inspiration, yet that it breathes the spirit of pathetic
numbers.
THE DAFFODIL.
One day among the tombs I stray’d,
Where many slighted lovers lay:
A daffodil I there survey’d,
Which seem’d in grief to pine away!
Enquiring why it hung its head?
And why in grief it seem’d to pine?
‘I am the eyes of him,’ it said,
‘Who lies beneath this lowly shrine!’
Like me, sad emblems of despair,
Still seek they to behold again
That cruel, that relentless fair,
Who wrought his death by her disdain!
It does, alas! from this appear,
That Love admits of no release;
Torments its vot’ries while they’re here,
Nor can the grave afford them peace!
Without upholding this little production as a prodigy, it may, perhaps,
be safely adduced as a contrast to those beauties I have selected from
the _Mirza’s_ little book of great wonders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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