hair

BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
This room was still--too still for peace.

It heard the livid words we said
Of hate and passion, watched us where
I sat, as one beside the dead--
You lay with all your glorious hair
Flung on the crazy bed.

The moment's passion ended brought--
Ah, child, to you what did it bring?
What could it, but one hideous thought

I thought my true love slept;
Behind her chair I crept
And pulled out a long pin;
The golden flood came out,
She shook it all about,
With both our faces in.

Ah! little wren, I know
Your mossy, small nest now
A windy, cold place is;
No eye can see my face,
Howe'er it watch the place
Where I half drown in bliss.

When I am drowned hald dead,
She laughs and shakes her head;
Flogged by her hair-waves, I
Withdraw my face from there;
But never once, I swear,

Krishna went playing in the lanes of Braj,
a yellow silk garment round his waist,
holding a top and a string to spin it with,
a crown of peacock-feathers adorning his head
his ears with charming ear-rings decked,
his teeth flashing brighter than the sun's rays,
his limbs anointed with sandalwood-paste.

On the Yamuna bank he chanced to see Radha;
a tika mark of turmeric on her brow,
dressed in a flowing skirt and blue blouse,
her lovely long wreathed hair dangling behind,

Quis multa gracilis te puer in Rosa
Rendred almost word for word without Rhyme according to the
Latin Measure, as near as the Language permit.

WHAT slender Youth bedew'd with liquid odours
Courts thee on Roses in some pleasant Cave,
Pyrrha for whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden Hair,
Plain in thy neatness; O how oft shall he
On Faith and changed Gods complain: and Seas
Rough with black winds and storms
Unwonted shall admire:
Who now enjoyes thee credulous, all Gold,

I hear a cry from the Sansard cave,
O mother, will no one hearken?
A cry of the lost, will no one save?
A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave,
And the scream of a gull as he wheels o'er a grave,
While the shadows darken and darken.'

'Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet,
And the cloud-caves split asunder,
With lightning in a jagged fret,
Like the gleam of a salmon in the net,
When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,
And the stream rolls down in thunder.'

In early morning twilight, raw and chill,
Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill,
Through miles of mire in steady grave array
Threescore well-arm'd police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings,
And under each greatcoat a bayonet clings:
The Sheriff on his sturdy cob astride
Talks with the chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu
Pretends his needful duty much to rue.
Six big-boned labourers, clad in common freize,

The trumpets of the four winds of the world
From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,
With breasts palpitating and wings refurled,
With passion of couched limbs, as one who grieves
Sleeping, and in her sleep she sees uncurled
Dreams serpent-shapen, such as sickness weaves,
Down the wild wind of vision caught and whirled,
Dead leaves of sleep, thicker than autumn leaves,
Shadows of storm-shaped things,
Flights of dim tribes of kings,
The reaping men that reap men for their sheaves,

I'm dead.
Officially I'm dead. Their hope is past.
How long I stood as missing! Now, at last
      &nbsp ;                 & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;   I'm dead.

Look in my face -- no likeness can you see,
No tiny trace of him they knew as "me".
How terrible the change!
Even my eyes are strange.
So keyed are they to pain,
That if I chanced to meet
My mother in the street
She'd look at me in vain.

When she got home I think she'd say:

This fell when dinner-time was done --
'Twixt the first an' the second rub --
That oor mon Jock cam' hame again
To his rooms ahist the Club.

An' syne he laughed, an' syne he sang,
An' syne we thocht him fou,
An' syne he trumped his partner's trick,
An' garred his partner rue.

Then up and spake an elder mon,
That held the Spade its Ace --
God save the lad! Whence comes the licht
"That wimples on his face?"

An' Jock he sniggered, an' Jock he smiled,
An' ower the card-brim wunk: --

"There's no sense in going further --
it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it --
broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences
in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills
where the trails run out and stop.

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience,
rang interminable changes
In one everlasting Whisper
day and night repeated -- so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the Ranges --
Something lost behind the Ranges.