The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days -- The hand-to-hand scuffle -- the smoke and the blaze -- The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn -- The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn -- The stench of the marshes -- the raw, piercing smell When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell -- The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood Where the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood. As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride, Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year, When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer. As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water, In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter, And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife. For she who had held him so long could not hold him -- Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him -- But watched the twin Terror -- the head turned to head -- The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red -- The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew to Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to. But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing, And muttered aloud, “So you kept that jade earring!” Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend, “Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end.” . . . . . The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion: -- “He took what I said in this horrible fashion, “_I'll_ write to Harendra!” With language unsainted The Captain came back to the Bride. . .who had fainted. . . . . . And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri, A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin -- She's always about on the Mall of a mornin' -- And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced, This: _Gules_ upon _argent_, a Boh's Head, _erased!_ THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF O woe is me for the merry life I led beyond the Bar, And a treble woe for my winsome wife That weeps at Shalimar. They have taken away my long jezail, My shield and sabre fine, And heaved me into the Central jail For lifting of the kine. The steer may low within the byre, The Jat may tend his grain, But there'll be neither loot nor fire Till I come back again. And God have mercy on the Jat When once my fetters fall, And Heaven defend the farmer's hut When I am loosed from thrall. It's woe to bend the stubborn back Above the grinching quern, It's woe to hear the leg-bar clack And jingle when I turn! But for the sorrow and the shame, The brand on me and mine, I'll pay you back in leaping flame And loss of the butchered kine. For every cow I spared before In charity set free, If I may reach my hold once more I'll reive an honest three.