Verses 1889-1896

THE LAST SUTTEE

       Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States.       His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee,       would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred.       But one of them, disguised as the King’s favourite dancing-girl,       passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre.  There,       her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court,       to kill her.  This he did, not knowing who she was.  Udai Chand lay sick to death      In his hold by Gungra hill.  All night we heard the death-gongs ring  For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,  All night beat up from the women’s wing      A cry that we could not still.  All night the barons came and went,      The lords of the outer guard:  All night the cressets glimmered pale  On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,  Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,      That clinked in the palace yard.  In the Golden room on the palace roof      All night he fought for air:  And there was sobbing behind the screen,  Rustle and whisper of women unseen,  And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen      On the death she might not share.  He passed at dawn – the death-fire leaped      From ridge to river-head,  From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars:  And wail upon wail went up to the stars  Behind the grim zenana-bars,      When they knew that the King was dead.  The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth      And robe him for the pyre.  The Boondi Queen beneath us cried:  “See, now, that we die as our mothers died  In the bridal-bed by our master’s side!      Out, women! – to the fire!”  We drove the great gates home apace:      White hands were on the sill:  But ere the rush of the unseen feet  Had reached the turn to the open street,  The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat —      We held the dovecot still.  A face looked down in the gathering day,      And laughing spoke from the wall:  “Oh]/e, they mourn here:  let me by —  Azizun, the  Lucknow nautch-girl, I!  When the house is rotten, the rats must fly,      And I seek another thrall.  “For I ruled the King as ne’er did Queen, —      To-night the Queens rule me!  Guard them safely, but let me go,  Or ever they pay the debt they owe  In scourge and torture!”  She leaped below,      And the grim guard watched her flee.  They knew that the King had spent his soul      On a North-bred dancing-girl:  That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god,  And kissed the ground where her feet had trod,  And doomed to death at her drunken nod,      And swore by her lightest curl.  We bore the King to his fathers’ place,      Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand:  Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen  On fretted pillar and jewelled screen,  And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen      On the drift of the desert sand.  The herald read his titles forth,      We set the logs aglow:  “Friend of the English, free from fear,  Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer,  Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer,      King of the Jungle, – go!”  All night the red flame stabbed the sky      With wavering wind-tossed spears:  And out of a shattered temple crept  A woman who veiled her head and wept,  And called on the King – but the great King slept,      And turned not for her tears.  Small thought had he to mark the strife —      Cold fear with hot desire —  When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame,  And thrice she beat her breast for shame,  And thrice like a wounded dove she came      And moaned about the fire.  One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze,      The silent streets between,  Who had stood by the King in sport and fray,  To blade in ambush or boar at bay,  And he was a baron old and gray,      And kin to the Boondi Queen.  He said:  “O shameless, put aside      The veil upon thy brow!  Who held the King and all his land  To the wanton will of a harlot’s hand!  Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand?      Stoop down, and call him now!”  Then she:  “By the faith of my tarnished soul,      All things I did not well,  I had hoped to clear ere the fire died,  And lay me down by my master’s side  To rule in Heaven his only bride,      While the others howl in Hell.  “But I have felt the fire’s breath,      And hard it is to die!  Yet if I may pray a Rajpoot lord  To sully the steel of a Thakur’s sword  With base-born blood of a trade abhorred,” —      And the Thakur answered, “Ay.”  He drew and struck:  the straight blade drank      The life beneath the breast.  “I had looked for the Queen to face the flame,  But the harlot dies for the Rajpoot dame —  Sister of mine, pass, free from shame,      Pass with thy King to rest!”  The black log crashed above the white:      The little flames and lean,  Red as slaughter and blue as steel,  That whistled and fluttered from head to heel,  Leaped up anew, for they found their meal      On the heart of – the Boondi Queen!

THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S MERCY

            Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told.            His mercy fills the Khyber hills – his grace is manifold;            He has taken toll of the North and the South –              his glory reacheth far,            And they tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar.  Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,  The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,  And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,  Tho’ he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life.  There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Euzufzai,  Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die.  It chanced the King went forth that hour when throat was bared to knife;  The Kaffir grovelled under-hoof and clamoured for his life.  Then said the King:  “Have hope, O friend!  Yea, Death disgraced is hard;  Much honour shall be thine”; and called the Captain of the Guard,  Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith,  And he was honoured of the King – the which is salt to Death;  And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains,  And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins;  And ‘twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind,  The King would make him butcher to a yelping cur of Hind.  “Strike!” said the King.  “King’s blood art thou —    his death shall be his pride!”   Then louder, that the crowd might catch:  “Fear not – his arms are tied!”   Yar Khan drew clear the Khyber knife, and struck, and sheathed again.  “O man, thy will is done,” quoth he; “a King this dog hath slain.”            Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, to the North and the South is sold.            The North and the South shall open their mouth              to a Ghilzai flag unrolled,            When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak, and his dog-Heratis fly:            Ye have heard the song – How long?  How long?              Wolves of the Abazai!  That night before the watch was set, when all the streets were clear,  The Governor of Kabul spoke:  “My King, hast thou no fear?  Thou knowest – thou hast heard,” – his speech died at his master’s face.  And grimly said the Afghan King:  “I rule the Afghan race.  My path is mine – see thou to thine – to-night upon thy bed  Think who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head.”  That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,  Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.  Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,  Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.  The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse’s hoofs,  The harlots of the town had hailed him “butcher!” from their roofs.  But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,  The King behind his shoulder spake:  “Dead man, thou dost not well!  ‘Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night;  And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.  But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,  Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.  For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.  My butcher of the shambles, rest – no knife hast thou for me!”            Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,              holds hard by the South and the North;            But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,              when the swollen banks break forth,            When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,              and his Usbeg lances fail:            Ye have heard the song – How long?  How long?              Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl!  They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,  According to the written word, “See that he do not die.”  They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,  And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.  One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered thing,  And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.  It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,  The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.  From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,  “Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death.”  They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby:  “Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!”  “Bid him endure until the day,” a lagging answer came;  “The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name.”  Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:  “Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!”  They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,  And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again.  Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,  So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.            Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told,            He has opened his mouth to the North and the South,              they have stuffed his mouth with gold.            Ye know the truth of his tender ruth – and sweet his favours are:            Ye have heard the song – How long?  How long?              from Balkh to Kandahar.

THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S JEST

  When spring-time flushes the desert grass,  Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.  Lean are the camels but fat the frails,  Light are the purses but heavy the bales,  As the snowbound trade of the North comes down  To the market-square of Peshawur town.  In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,  A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.  Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,  And tent-peg answered to  hammer-nose;  And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,  Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;  And the bubbling camels beside the load  Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;  And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,  Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;  And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;  And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;  And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk  A savour of camels and carpets and musk,  A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,  To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.  The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,  The knives were whetted and – then came I  To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,  Patching his bridles and counting his gear,  Crammed with the gossip of half a year.  But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,  “Better is speech when the belly is fed.”   So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep  In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,  And he who never hath tasted the food,  By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.  We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,  We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,  And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,  With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.  Four things greater than all things are, —  Women and Horses and Power and War.  We spake of them all, but the last the most,  For I sought a word of a Russian post,  Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword  And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.  Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes  In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.  Quoth he:  “Of the Russians who can say?  When the night is gathering all is gray.  But we look that the gloom of the night shall die  In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.  Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise  To warn a King of his enemies?  We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,  But no man knoweth the mind of the King.  That unsought counsel is cursed of God  Attesteth the story of Wali Dad.  “His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,  His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;  And the colt bred close to the vice of each,  For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.  Therewith madness – so that he sought  The favour of kings at the Kabul court;  And travelled, in hope of honour, far  To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.  There have I journeyed too – but I  Saw naught, said naught, and – did not die!  He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breath  Of `this one knoweth’ and `that one saith’, —  Legends that ran from mouth to mouth  Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.  These have I also heard – they pass  With each new spring and the winter grass.  “Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,  Back to the city ran Wali Dad,  Even to Kabul – in full durbar  The King held talk with his Chief in War.  Into the press of the crowd he broke,  And what he had heard of the coming spoke.  “Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,  As a mother might on a babbling child;  But those who would laugh restrained their breath,  When the face of the King showed dark as death.  Evil it is in full durbar  To cry to a ruler of gathering war!  Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,  That grew by a cleft of the city wall.  And he said to the boy:  `They shall praise thy zeal  So long as the red spurt follows the steel.  And the Russ is upon us even now?  Great is thy prudence – await them, thou.  Watch from the tree.  Thou art young and strong,  Surely thy vigil is not for long.  The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?  Surely an hour shall bring their van.  Wait and watch.  When the host is near,  Shout aloud that my men may hear.’  “Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise  To warn a King of his enemies?  A guard was set that he might not flee —  A score of bayonets ringed the tree.  The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,  When he shook at his death as he looked below.  By the power of God, who alone is great,  Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.  Then madness took him, and men declare  He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,  And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,  And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,  And sleep the cord of his hands untied,  And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.  “Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise  To warn a King of his enemies?  We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,  But no man knoweth the mind of the King.  Of the gray-coat coming who can say?  When the night is gathering all is gray.  Two things greater than all things are,  The first is Love, and the second War.  And since we know not how War may prove,  Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”

WITH SCINDIA TO DELHI

More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,

an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost

with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,

on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.

A Maratta trooper tells the story: —

  The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck,   Our hands and scarfs were saffron-dyed for signal of despair,  When we went forth to Paniput to battle with the Mlech, —   Ere we came back from Paniput and left a kingdom there.  Thrice thirty thousand men were we to force the Jumna fords —   The hawk-winged horse of Damajee, mailed squadrons of the Bhao,  Stark levies of the southern hills, the Deccan’s sharpest swords,   And he the harlot’s traitor son the goatherd Mulhar Rao!  Thrice thirty thousand men were we before the mists had cleared,   The low white mists of morning heard the war-conch scream and bray;  We called upon Bhowani and we gripped them by the beard,   We rolled upon them like a flood and washed their ranks away.  The children of the hills of Khost before our lances ran,   We drove the black Rohillas back as cattle to the pen;  ‘Twas then we needed Mulhar Rao to end what we began,   A thousand men had saved the charge; he fled the field with ten!  There was no room to clear a sword – no power to strike a blow,   For foot to foot, ay, breast to breast, the battle held us fast —  Save where the naked hill-men ran, and stabbing from below   Brought down the horse and rider and we trampled them and passed.  To left the roar of musketry rang like a falling flood —   To right the sunshine rippled red from redder lance and blade —  Above the dark Upsaras4 flew, beneath us plashed the blood,   And, bellying black against the dust, the Bhagwa Jhanda swayed.  I saw it fall in smoke and fire, the banner of the Bhao;   I heard a voice across the press of one who called in vain: —  “Ho! Anand Rao Nimbalkhur, ride!  Get aid of Mulhar Rao!   Go shame his squadrons into fight – the Bhao – the Bhao is slain!”  Thereat, as when a sand-bar breaks in clotted spume and spray —   When rain of later autumn sweeps the Jumna water-head,  Before their charge from flank to flank our riven ranks gave way;   But of the waters of that flood the Jumna fords ran red.  I held by Scindia, my lord, as close as man might hold;   A Soobah of the Deccan asks no aid to guard his life;  But Holkar’s Horse were flying, and our chiefest chiefs were cold,   And like a flame among us leapt the long lean Northern knife.  I held by Scindia – my lance from butt to tuft was dyed,   The froth of battle bossed the shield and roped the bridle-chain —  What time beneath our horses’ feet a maiden rose and cried,   And clung to Scindia, and I turned a sword-cut from the twain.  (He set a spell upon the maid in woodlands long ago,   A hunter by the Tapti banks she gave him water there:  He turned her heart to water, and she followed to her woe.   What need had he of Lalun who had twenty maids as fair?)  Now in that hour strength left my lord; he wrenched his mare aside;   He bound the girl behind him and we slashed and struggled free.  Across the reeling wreck of strife we rode as shadows ride   From Paniput to Delhi town, but not alone were we.  ‘Twas Lutuf-Ullah Populzai laid horse upon our track,   A swine-fed reiver of the North that lusted for the maid;  I might have barred his path awhile, but Scindia called me back,   And  I – O woe for Scindia! – I listened and obeyed.  League after league the formless scrub took shape and glided by —   League after league the white road swirled behind the white mare’s feet —  League after league, when leagues were done, we heard the Populzai,   Where sure as Time and swift as Death the tireless footfall beat.  Noon’s eye beheld that shame of flight, the shadows fell, we fled   Where steadfast as the wheeling kite he followed in our train;  The black wolf warred where we had warred, the jackal mocked our dead,   And terror born of twilight-tide made mad the labouring brain.  I gasped: – “A kingdom waits my lord; her love is but her own.   A day shall mar, a day shall cure for her, but what for thee?  Cut loose the girl:  he follows fast.  Cut loose and ride alone!”    Then Scindia ‘twixt his blistered lips: – “My Queens’ Queen shall she be!  “Of all who ate my bread last night ‘twas she alone that came   To seek her love between the spears and find her crown therein!  One shame is mine to-day, what need the weight of double shame?   If once we reach the Delhi gate, though all be lost, I win!”  We rode – the white mare failed – her trot a staggering stumble grew, —   The cooking-smoke of even rose and weltered and hung low;  And still we heard the Populzai and still we strained anew,   And Delhi town was very near, but nearer was the foe.  Yea, Delhi town was very near when Lalun whispered: – “Slay!   Lord of my life, the mare sinks fast – stab deep and let me die!”   But Scindia would not, and the maid tore free and flung away,   And turning as she fell we heard the clattering Populzai.

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1

Camel: – oo is pronounced like u in “bull”, but by Mr. Atkins to rhyme with “front”.

2

Why don’t you get on?

3

Language. Thomas’s first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language.

4

The Choosers of the Slain.