from The Garden of Kama (1901):

Less Than the Dust

Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel,

Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword,

Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord,

                Even less than these!

Less than the weed, that grows beside thy door,

Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee,

Less than the need thou hast in life of me.

                Even less am I.

Since I, O Lord, am nothing unto thee,

See here thy Sword, I make it keen and bright,

Love's last reward, Death, comes to me to-night,

                Farewell, Zahir-u-din.

Laurence Hope

Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank

The Desert is parched in the burning sun

And the grass is scorched and white.

But the sand is passed, and the march is done,

We are camping here to-night.

I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,

While the cadenced water evenly falls,

And a peacock out of the Jungle calls

To another, on yonder tomb.

       Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,

       Strange works of a long dead people loom,

Obscene and savage and half effaced

An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast--

And curious matings of man and beast;

What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?

Whose fingers traced,

In this arid waste,

These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust?

Strange, weird things that no man may say,

Things Humanity hides away;--

Secretly done,--

Catch the light of the living day,

Smile in the sun.

Cruel things that man may not name,

Naked here, without fear or shame,

Laughed in the carven stone.

Deep in the Temple's innermost Shrine is set,

Where the hats and shadows dwell,

The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest

In its oval shell,

By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed,

Represented their Great Destroying Power.

I cannot forget

That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower,

Love came and destroyed it all in a single hour,

Therefore the dual Mystery suits me well.

Sitting alone,

The tank's deep water is cool and sweet,

Soothing and fresh to the wayworn feet,

Dreaming, under the Tamarind shade,

One silently thanks the men who made

So green a place in this bitter land

Of sunburnt sand.

The peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo,

Little green, talkative Parrots woo,

And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance,

At alien me, in their furtive glance,

Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see

The stranger under their Tamarind tree.

Daylight dies,

The Camp fires redden like angry eyes,

The Tents show white,

In the glimmering light,

Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies,

       And the hum of the Camp sounds like the sea,

Drifting over the sand to me.

       Afar, in the Desert some wild voice sings

       To a jangling zither with minor strings,

And, under the stars growing keen above,

I think of the thing that I love.

       A beautiful thing, alert, serene,

With passionate, dreaming, wistful eyes,

Dark and deep as mysterious skies,

Seen from a vessel at sea.

Alas, you drifted away from me,

And Time and Space have rushed in between.

But they cannot undo the Thing-that-has-been,

Though it never again may be.

You were mine, from dusk until dawning light,

For the perfect whole of that bygone night

You belonged to me!

They say that Love is a light thing,

A foolish thing and a slight thing,

A ripe fruit, rotten at core;

They speak in this futile fashion

To me, who am wracked with passion,

Tormented beyond compassion,

For ever and ever more.

They say that Possession lessens a lover's delight,

As radiant mornings fade into afternoon.

I held what I loved in my arms for many a night,

Yet ever the morning lightened the sky too soon.

Beyond our tents the sands stretch level and far.

Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees.

A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze

From the ruinous Temple garden where roses are.

I dream of the rose-like perfume that fills your hair,

Of times when my lips were free of your soft closed eyes,

While down in the tank the waters ripple and rise

And the flying foxes silently cleave the air.

The present is subtly welded into the past,

My love of you with the purple Indian dusk,

With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk,

And withering jasmin flowers.

My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last,

While the lonely hours

Follow each other, silently, one by one,

Till the night is almost done.

Then weary, and drunk with dreams, with my garments damp

And heavy with dew, I wander towards the camp.

Tired, with a brain in which fancy and fact are blent,

I stumble across the ropes till I reach my tent

And then to rest. To ensweeten my sleep with lies,

To dream I lie in the light of your long lost eyes,

My lips set free,

To love and linger over your soft loose hair--

To dream I lay your delicate beauty bare

To solace my fevered eyes.

Ah,--if my life might end in a night like this--

Drift into death from dreams of your granted kiss!

Laurence Hope

The Teak Forest

Whether I loved you who shall say?

Whether I drifted down your way

In the endless river of Chance and Change,

And you woke the strange

Unknown longings that have no names,

But burn us all in their hidden flames,

Who shall say?

Life is a strange and a wayward thing:

We heard the bells of the Temples ring,

The married children, in passing, sing.

The month of marriage, the month of spring,

Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers

That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,

And, under a sky more fiercely blue,

I came to you!

You told me tales of your vivid life

Where death was cruel and danger rife--

Of deep forests, of poisoned trees,

Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze,

Of southern noontides and eastern nights,

Where love grew frantic with strange delights,

While men were slaying and maidens danced,

Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced.

Then, swift as a swallow heading south,

I kissed your mouth!

One night when the plains were bathed in blood

From sunset light in a crimson flood,

We wandered under the young teak trees

Whose branches whined in the light night breeze;

You led me down to the water's brink,

"The spring where the Panthers come to drink

At night; there is always water here

Be the season never so parched and sere."

Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men?

I fain would have tasted your life-blood then.

The night fell swiftly; this sudden land

Can never lend us a twilight strand

'Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night,

But takes -- as it gives -- at once, the light.

We laid us down on the steep hillside,

While far below us wild peacocks cried,

And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass,

The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass.

We listened; knew not whether they went

On love or hunger the more intent.

And under your kisses I hardly knew

Whether I loved or hated you.

But your words were flame and your kisses fire,

And who shall resist a strong desire?

Not I, whose life is a broken boat

On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat.

And, whether I came in love or hate,

That I came to you was written by fate

In every hue of the blood-red sky,

In every tone of the peacocks' cry.

While every gust of the Jungle night

Was fanning the flame you had set alight.

For these things have power to stir the blood

And compel us all to their own chance mood.

And to love or not we are no more free

Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.

We are ever and always slaves of these,

Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze,

Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air,

Of the half heard howl from the far off lair.

These chance things master us ever. Compel

To the heights of Heaven, the depths of Hell.

Whether I love you? You do not ask,

Nor waste yourself on the thankless task

I give your kisses at least return,

What matter whether they freeze or burn.

I feel the strength of your fervent arms,

What matter whether it heals or harms.

You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent.

You ask no question, but rest content

So I am with you to take your kiss,

And perhaps I value you more for this.

For this is Wisdom; to love, to live,

To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give,

To ask no question, to make no prayer,

To kiss the lips and caress the hair,

Speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow,--

To have, -- to hold, -- and, -- in time, -- let go!

And this is our Wisdom: we rest together

On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather,

And watch the skies as they pale and burn,

The golden stars in their orbits turn,

While Love is with us, and Time and Peace,

And life has nothing to give but these.

But, whether you love me, who shall say,

Or whether you, drifting down my way

In the great sad River of Chance and Change,

With your looks so weary and words so strange,

Lit my soul from some hidden flame

To a passionate longing without a name,

Who shall say?

Not I, who am but a broken boat,

Content for awhile to drift afloat

In the little noontide of love's delights

Between two Nights.

Laurence Hope

On the City Wall

Upon the City ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,

The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream.

The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from the West,

The last alight with action, the first so full of rest.

Brown, that seem to hold the Past; its magic mystery,

Blue that catch the early light, of ages yet to be.

Meet and fall and meet again, then linger, look, and smile,

Time and distance all forgotten, for a little while.

Happy on the city wall, in the warm spring weather,

All the force of Nature's laws, drawing them together.

East and West so gaily blending, for a little space,

All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' Enchanted place!

One rides down the dusty road, one watches from the wall,

Azure eyes would fain return, and Amber eyes recall;

Would fain be on the ramparts, and resting heart to heart,

But time o' love is overpast, East and West must part.

Blue eyes so clear and brilliant! Brown eyes so dark and deep!

Those are dim, and ride away, these cry themselves to sleep.

"Oh, since Love is all so short, the sob so near the smile,

Blue eyes that always conquer us, is it worth your while?"

Laurence Hope

Feroza

The evening sky was as green as Jade,

As Emerald turf by Lotus lake,

Behind the Kafila far she strayed,

(The Pearls are lost if the necklace break!)

A lingering freshness touched the air

From palm-trees, clustered around a spring,

The great, grim Desert lay vast and bare,

But youth is ever a careless thing.

The Raiders threw her upon the sand,

Men of the Wilderness know no laws,

They tore the Amethysts off her hand,

And rent the folds of her veiling gauze.

They struck the lips that they might have kissed,

Pitiless they to her pain and fear,

And wrenched the gold from her broken wrist,

No use to cry; there were none to hear.

Her scarlet mouth and her onyx eyes,

Her braided hair in its silken sheen,

Were surely meet for a Lover's prize,

But fate dissented, and stepped between.

Across the Zenith the vultures fly,

Cruel of beak and heavy of wing.

Thus it was written that she should die.

Inshallah! Death is a transient thing.

Laurence Hope