LITMIR.BIZ

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her. This he did, not

       knowing who she was.

      Udai Chand lay sick to death

       In his hold by Gungra hill.

       All night we heard the death-gongs ring

       For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,

       All night beat up from the women's wing

       A cry that we could not still.

      All night the barons came and went,

       The lords of the outer guard:

       All night the cressets glimmered pale

       On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,

       Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,

       That clinked in the palace yard.

      In the Golden room on the palace roof

       All night he fought for air:

       And there was sobbing behind the screen,

       Rustle and whisper of women unseen,

       And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen

       On the death she might not share.

      He passed at dawn—the death-fire leaped

       From ridge to river-head,

       From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars:

       And wail upon wail went up to the stars

       Behind the grim zenana-bars,

       When they knew that the King was dead.

      The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth

       And robe him for the pyre.

       The Boondi Queen beneath us cried:

       "See, now, that we die as our mothers died

       In the bridal-bed by our master's side!

       Out, women!—to the fire!"

      We drove the great gates home apace:

       White hands were on the sill:

       But ere the rush of the unseen feet

       Had reached the turn to the open street,

       The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat—

       We held the dovecot still.

      A face looked down in the gathering day,

       And laughing spoke from the wall:

       "Ohe', they mourn here: let me by—

       Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I!

       When the house is rotten, the rats must fly,

       And I seek another thrall.

      "For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen,—

       Tonight the Queens rule me!

       Guard them safely, but let me go,

       Or ever they pay the debt they owe

       In scourge and torture!" She leaped below,

       And the grim guard watched her flee.

      They knew that the King had spent his soul

       On a North-bred dancing-girl:

       That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god,

       And kissed the ground where her feet had trod,

       And doomed to death at her drunken nod,

       And swore by her lightest curl.

      We bore the King to his fathers' place,

       Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand:

       Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen

       On fretted pillar and jewelled screen,

       And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen

       On the drift of the desert sand.

      The herald read his titles forth,

       We set the logs aglow:

       "Friend of the English, free from fear,

       Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer,

       Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer,

       King of the Jungle,—go!"

      All night the red flame stabbed the sky

       With wavering wind-tossed spears:

       And out of a shattered temple crept

       A woman who veiled her head and wept,

       And called on the King—but the great King slept,

       And turned not for her tears.

      Small thought had he to mark the strife—

       Cold fear with hot desire—

       When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame,

       And thrice she beat her breast for shame,

       And thrice like a wounded dove she came

       And moaned about the fire.

      One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze,

       The silent streets between,

       Who had stood by the King in sport and fray,

       To blade in ambush or boar at bay,

       And he was a baron old and gray,

       And kin to the Boondi Queen.

      He said: "O shameless, put aside

       The veil upon thy brow!

       Who held the King and all his land

       To the wanton will of a harlot's hand!

       Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand?

       Stoop down, and call him now!"

      Then she: "By the faith of my tarnished soul,

       All things I did not well,

       I had hoped to clear ere the fire died,

       And lay me down by my master's side

       To rule in Heaven his only bride,

       While the others howl in Hell.

      "But I have felt the fire's breath,

       And hard it is to die!

       Yet if I may pray a Rajpoot lord

       To sully the steel of a Thakur's sword

       With base-born blood of a trade abhorred,"—

       And the Thakur answered, "Ay."

      He drew and struck: the straight blade drank

       The life beneath the breast.

      "I had looked for the Queen to face the flame,

       But the harlot dies for the Rajpoot dame—

       Sister of mine, pass, free from shame,

       Pass with thy King to rest!"

      The black log crashed above the white:

       The little flames and lean,

       Red as slaughter and blue as steel,

       That whistled and fluttered from head to heel,

       Leaped up anew, for they found their meal

       On the heart of—the Boondi Queen!

The Ballad of the King's Mercy

       Table of Contents

      Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,

       of him is the story told.

       His mercy fills the Khyber hills—

       his grace is manifold;

       He has taken toll of the North and the South—

      

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