Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth! THE LAST SUTTEE 1889 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 and burned themselves with the corpse 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 Α cry All night the barons came and went, In the Golden Room on the palace roof He passed at dawn—the death-fire leaped From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: When they knew that the King was dead. The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth The Boondi Queen beneath us cried: 66 See, now, that we die as our mothers died "In the bridal-bed by our master's side! 66 Out, women! to the fire!" We drove the great gates home apace: But ere the rush of the unseen feet A face looked down in the gathering day, 66 "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, 66 To-night the Queens rule me! "Guard them safely, but let me go, "Or ever they pay the debt they owe They knew that the King had spent his soul That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god, We bore the King to his fathers' place, Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand: Where the grey 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, 66 Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer, "Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer, All night the red flame stabbed the sky And called on the King - but the great King slept, One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze, Who had stood by the King in sport and fray, And he was a baron old and grey, And kin to the Boondi Queen. Small thought had he to mark the strife - When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame, 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 66 I had looked for the Queen to face the flame, The black log crashed above the white: Red as slaughter and blue as steel, That whistled and fluttered from head to heel, GENERAL JOUBERT 1900 (Died March 27, 1900) WITH those that bred, with those that loosed the strife, He had no part whose hands were clear of gain; Later shall rise a people, sane and great, He Not least his name shall pass from sire to son. may not meet the onsweep of our van In the doomed city when we close the score; grave that holds a man Yet o'er his grave his Our deep-tongued guns shall answer his once more! |