English

My FATHER'S father saw it not,
And I, belike, shall never come
To look on that so-holy spot —
The very Rome —

Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height —
The Race began!

Soon to send forth again a brood,
Unshakeable, we pray, that clings
To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood —
In arduous things.

Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die.
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's:
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'erkind,
To all that be,

Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason?
What are his measures and balances? Which is his season
For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him
When he arises to smite us? I do not love him.

He invites the derision of strangers — he enters all places.
Booted, bareheaded he enters. With shouts and embraces
He asks of us news of the household whom we reckon nameless.
Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless!

So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping —

They burnt a corpse upon the sand —
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging dhows
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise,
Thou art the Light of Guidance to our eyes!
In Error .

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise!
Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes?
Open thy ears while I whisper my wish.
Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish!
The Bisara of Pooree .

While the snaffle holds or the long-neck stings,
While the big beam tilts or the last bell rings,
While horses are horses to train and to race,
Then women and wine take a second place
For me — for me —
While a short " ten-three "
Has a field to squander or fence to face.
The Broken-Link Handicap .

Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods
When great Jove nods;
But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes
In missing the hour when great Jove wakes.
A Germ-Destroyer .

So we loosed a bloomin' volley
An' we made the beggars cut,
An' when our pooch was emptied out
We used the bloomin' butt.
Ho! My! Don't you come anigh
When Tommy is a-playin' with the baynit an' the butt!
The Taking of Lungtungpen .

Rosicrucian subtleties
In the Orient had rise.
Ye may find their teachers still
Under Jacatâlâ's Hill.
Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus,
Read what Fludd the Seeker tells us
Of the Dominant that runs
Through the cycle of the Suns.
Read my story last and see
Luna at her apogee.
Consequences .

Then a pile of heads he laid —
Thirty thousand heaped on high —
All to please the Kafir maid
Where the Oxus rippled by.
Grimly spake Atulla Khan: —
" Love hath made this thing a Man. "
His Chance in Life