I see as in a pale mirage
The palm that o'er you sways,
The waters of the Jumna wan are beating.
One pearl-cloud, like a far-off Taj,
A dome of grief betrays—
Its beauty as was yours will be too fleeting!
The world is wider than I knew
Now that your face is gone!
While you were here no destiny seemed boundless.
So I am lost and find no clue
To any dusk or dawn!
Life has become a quest decayed and groundless.
Come back! come back or let me find
The jungle leads at last
Unto your lips and bosom recreated!
O somewhere I again must wind
My arms about you, cast
Into one word my love all unabated!
PRINCESS JEHANARA
Where the road leads from Delhi to the South,
And dingy camel-trains creep in the dust
Past ruin-heaps of old Firozabad
And Indropat unpitied of the drouth;
By a lone tree, above a Pool whose sad
Prayer-water all the turban-people trust,
Is a heat-hidden tomb, and on it just
A few faint blades of bent and grieving grass.
"Jehanara's it is," with ready mouth
A Moslem tells the stranger, "once she said,
'The covering of the poor is only grass,
Let it be mine alone when I am dead.'"
And who has stood there, where about her Rest
Rise high Imperial tombs, knows hers is best.