THE RAJPOOT WIFE.
Sing something, Jymul Rao! for the goats are gathered now,
And no more water is to bring;
The village-gates are set, and the night is gray as yet,
God hath given wondrous fancies to thee:—sing!
Then Jymul's supple fingers, with a touch that doubts and lingers,
Sets athrill the saddest wire of all the six;
And the girls sit in a tangle, and hush the tinkling bangle,
While the boys pile the flame with store of sticks.
And vain of village praise, but full of ancient days,
He begins with a smile and with a sigh—
"Who knows the babul-tree by the bend of the Ravee?"
Quoth Gunesh, "I!" and twenty voices, "I!"
"Well—listen! there below, in the shade of bloom and bough,
Is a musjid of carved and coloured stone;
And Abdool Shureef Khan—I spit, to name that man!—
Lieth there, underneath, all alone.
"He was Sultan Mahmoud's vassal, and wore an Amir's tassel
In his green hadj-turban, at Nungul.
Yet the head which went so proud, it is not in his shroud;
There are bones in that grave,—but not a skull!
"And, deep drove in his breast, there moulders with the rest
A dagger, brighter once than Chundra's ray;
A Rajpoot lohar whet it, and a Rajpoot woman set it
Past the power of any hand to tear away.
"'Twas the Ranee Neila true, the wife of Soorj Dehu,
Lord of the Rajpoots of Nourpoor;
You shall hear the mournful story, with its sorrow and its glory,
And curse Shureef Khan,—the soor!"