Short Poems

A stone's throw out on either hand
From that well-ordered road we tread,
And all the world is wild and strange;
Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite
Shall bear us company to-night,
For we have reached the Oldest Land
Wherein the Powers of Darkness range.
In the House of Suddhoo .

In the daytime, when she moved about me,
In the night, when she was sleeping at my side, —
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her —
Would God that she or I had died!
The Bronckhorst Divorce Case .

Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel,
But, once in a way, there will come a day
When the colt must be taught to feel
The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting of the rowelled steel.
The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin .

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail,
A spectre at my door,
Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail —
I shall but love you more,
Who, from Death's House returning, give me still
One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.
By Word of Mouth .

The World hath set its heavy yoke
Upon the old white-bearded folk
Who strive to please the King.
God's mercy is upon the young,
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.
Tods' Amendment .

" 'Stopped in the straight when the race was his own —
Look at him cutting it — cur to the bone! "
Ask ere the youngster be rated and chidden
What did he carry and how was he ridden?
Maybe they used him too much at the start.
Maybe Fate's weight-cloth is breaking his heart.
In the Pride of his Youth .

Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather,
Ride, follow the fox if you can!
But, for pleasure and profit together,
Allow me the hunting of Man —
The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul
To its ruin — the hunting of Man.
Pig .

Cry " Murder " in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
Asking: " Art thou the man? " We hunted Cain
Some centuries ago across the world.
This bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
To-day.
His Wedded Wife .

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken any way you please, is bad,
And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks
No decent soul would think of visiting.
You cannot stop the tide; but, now and then,
You may arrest some rash adventurer,
Who — h'm — will hardly thank you for your pains.
Kidnapped .

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!