THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BULLOCK CART
Now is the time when India is gay
With wedding parties; and the radiant throngs
Seem like a scattered rainbow taking part
In human pleasures. Dressed in bright array,
They fling upon the bride their wreaths of songs—
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
Here is the temple ready for the rite:
The large-eyed bullocks halt; and waiting arms
Lift down the bride. All India’s curious art
Speaks in the gems with which she is bedight.
And in the robes which hide her sweet alarms—
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
This is her day of days: her splendid hour
When joy is hers, though love is all unknown.
It has not dawned upon her childish heart.
But human triumph, in a temporal power,
Has crowned her queen upon a one-day throne—
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
Ah, Little Lady! What will be your fate?
So long, so long, the outward-reaching years:
So brief the joy of this elusive part;
So frail the shoulders for the loads that wait:
So bitter salt the virgin widow’s tears—
O Little Lady of the Bullock cart.
EAST AND WEST
The Day has never understood the Gloaming or the Night;
Though sired by one Creative Power, and nursed at Nature’s breast;
The White Man ever fails to read the Dark Man’s heart aright;
Though from the self-same Source they came, upon the self-same quest;
So deep and wide, the Great Divide,
Between the East and West.
But like a shadow on a screen, mine eyes behold, above
The yawning gulf, a dim forecast, of structures strong and broad;
Where caste, and colour prejudice, by countless feet down trod,
With old traditions crushed by Time, pave smooth the bridge of Love;
And all the creed that men shall heed
Is consciousness of God.
THE SQUANDERER
God gave him passions, splendid as the sun,
Meant for the lordliest purposes; a part
Of nature’s full and fertile mother heart,
From which new systems and new stars are spun.
And now, behold, behold, what he has done!
In Folly’s court and carnal Pleasures’ mart
He flung the wealth life gave him at the start.
(This, of all mortal sins, the deadliest one.)