LITMIR.BIZ

        “His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,

        His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;

        And the colt bred close to the vice of each,

        For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.

        Therewith madness – so that he sought

        The favour of kings at the Kabul court;

        And travelled, in hope of honour, far

        To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.

        There have I journeyed too – but I

        Saw naught, said naught, and – did not die!

        He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breath

        Of `this one knoweth’ and `that one saith’, —

        Legends that ran from mouth to mouth

        Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.

        These have I also heard – they pass

        With each new spring and the winter grass.

        “Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,

        Back to the city ran Wali Dad,

        Even to Kabul – in full durbar

        The King held talk with his Chief in War.

        Into the press of the crowd he broke,

        And what he had heard of the coming spoke.

        “Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,

        As a mother might on a babbling child;

        But those who would laugh restrained their breath,

        When the face of the King showed dark as death.

        Evil it is in full durbar

        To cry to a ruler of gathering war!

        Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,

        That grew by a cleft of the city wall.

        And he said to the boy:  `They shall praise thy zeal

        So long as the red spurt follows the steel.

        And the Russ is upon us even now?

        Great is thy prudence – await them, thou.

        Watch from the tree.  Thou art young and strong,

        Surely thy vigil is not for long.

        The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?

        Surely an hour shall bring their van.

        Wait and watch.  When the host is near,

        Shout aloud that my men may hear.’

        “Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

        To warn a King of his enemies?

        A guard was set that he might not flee —

        A score of bayonets ringed the tree.

        The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,

        When he shook at his death as he looked below.

        By the power of God, who alone is great,

        Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.

        Then madness took him, and men declare

        He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,

        And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,

        And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,

        And sleep the cord of his hands untied,

        And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.

        “Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise

        To warn a King of his enemies?

        We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

        But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

        Of the gray-coat coming who can say?

        When the night is gathering all is gray.

        Two things greater than all things are,

        The first is Love, and the second War.

        And since we know not how War may prove,

        Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”