Part 4 (2/2)

And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame That stings like a white hot brand.

It's coming to know that she never knew why (Seeing at last she could never know why) And never could understand.

TO THE UNKNOWN G.o.dDESS

Will you conquer my heart with your beauty; my soul going out from afar?

Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious s.h.i.+kar?

Have I met you and pa.s.sed you already, unknowing, unthinking and blind?

Shall I meet you next session at Simla, O sweetest and best of your kind?

Does the P. and O. bear you to meward, or, clad in short frocks in the West, Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torture the heart in my breast?

Will you stay in the Plains till September--my pa.s.sion as warm as the day?

Will you bring me to book on the Mountains, or where the thermantidotes play?

When the light of your eyes shall make pallid the mean lesser lights I pursue, And the charm of your presence shall lure me from love of the gay ”thirteen- two”;

When the peg and the pig-skin shall please not; when I buy me Calcutta-build clothes; When I quit the Delight of Wild a.s.ses; forswearing the swearing of oaths; As a deer to the hand of the hunter when I turn 'mid the gibes of my friends; When the days of my freedom are numbered, and the life of the bachelor ends.

Ah, G.o.ddess! child, spinster, or widow--as of old on Mars Hill whey they raised To the G.o.d that they knew not an altar--so I, a young Pagan, have praised The G.o.ddess I know not nor wors.h.i.+p; yet, if half that men tell me be true, You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written to you.

THE RUPAIYAT OF OMAR KAL'VIN

[Allowing for the difference 'twixt prose and rhymed exaggeration, this ought to reproduce the sense of what Sir A-- told the nation sometime ago, when the Government struck from our incomes two per cent.]

Now the New Year, reviving last Year's Debt, The Thoughtful Fisher casteth wide his Net; So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue a.s.sail all Men for all that I can get.

Imports indeed are gone with all their Dues-- Lo! Salt a Lever that I dare not use, Nor may I ask the Tillers in Bengal-- Surely my Kith and Kin will not refuse!

Pay--and I promise by the Dust of Spring, Retrenchment. If my promises can bring Comfort, Ye have Them now a thousandfold-- By Allah! I will promise Anything!

Indeed, indeed, Retrenchment oft before I swore--but did I mean it when I swore?

And then, and then, We wandered to the Hills, And so the Little Less became Much More.

Whether a Boileaugunge or Babylon, I know not how the wretched Thing is done, The Items of Receipt grow surely small; The Items of Expense mount one by one.

I cannot help it. What have I to do With One and Five, or Four, or Three, or Two?

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