Classic Poem

High on the cool, green summit of a hill
That crowns a footspur of the Western Ghauts,
There stands a lonely tower. A grove of palms
Clusters about its foot, and far below
The warm waves lap the gorgeous tropic shore
Of rich Bombay. Strong, close-clamped iron bars,
Netted and intersected, crown its top,
And deep and dark beneath there sleeps a well.

This strange, weird thing—this high and silent tower,
That looks down on the city and the sea—
Is not a temple, nor a monument,
Nor yet is it a seat where telescopes
Are pointed skyward. 'Tis a common tomb!

Here, while the fetid flame of Hindoo pyres
Blaze on the plains below, and while the sea
Utters its solemn dirges by the shore,
The Parsees bring their dead. No graves are dug;
No cool, fresh turf, in its soft tenderness,
About the sleeper flings its garments green.
Here, high in the air, beneath the solemn stars,
With faces smiling ghastly to the moon—
Now bathed in night dews, now in noontide heats—
Lie in grim state the devotees of fire.
Glowing upon the reeking forms, the sun
Shines fiercely down—the god, before whose shrine.
In life they bowed, in death are offered up.

But hungry ghouls swoop down upon the dead,
And, fiercely screaming, claim a ghastly share.
Vultures and eagles, every bird of prey
That haunts the crags of the wild Ghautian hills.
Here feed and fatten on the dreadful feast.
And when the sun, the dews and mountain winds.
Have ended the dread work the birds began,
When the slow-working fingers of decay
Have crumbled up the bleached and naked bones,
There is the well below; and, piece by piece,
They drop into its bosom, dark and deep;
This is the secret of the Silent Tower:—

Ajalee was a Parsee bride, beloved
And beautiful. Her husband clung to her
With passionate devotion—yet she died.
So had he loved her that the awful thought
Of giving up the form his arms had clasped
To the fierce talons of the screaming birds
Seemed horrible to him. So, when he laid
His lovely sleeper on the Silent Tower
With a last kiss, love formed its skillful plan.
He built about her a close netted screen.
At which the hungry claws might tear in vain;
Then left her to the moon and midnight stars;
To the soft washings of the tropic rain;
The mountain winds, and the sweet, sacred sun.