Dear fellow-traveller, pleasant Friend,
'Tis sad we near our journey's end,
And now the " parting of the ways "
Hangs like a pall upon our days —
An " Indian Summer " we have spent
With which the winter weeks have blent
Until we really hardly knew
Which season 'twas; for skies so blue
Have crowned so many charming hours
It surely was the " time of flowers. "
Please don't forget your comrade when
The busy world shall claim you, then
A special loyalty 'twould be
To give a wandering thought to me, —
A train of thought just send my way
As long as up to Mandalay!
Remember Ahmedabad's procession
Where we were seized by an obsession
For Hindu weddings; wreathed in flowers
We whiled away the twilight hours —
And Udaipur! ah! fairy palace,
A " wonderland " where many an " Alice "
Might lose her way in happy dreaming,
And soon forget to be , in seeming!
Oh! silent cranes that fly to rest
Above the water's placid breast,
And light that flushes as it closes
And turns the sky to ash of roses, —
Full long, in memory's amber pressed,
Will dwell that scene I love the best.
Then Chitore's towers of Victory
Against a dark and murky sky,
They dominate the long-dead past,
And teach us Beauty's worth at last.
From Delhi and from Agra, too,
We learn that Art and Love are true;
We prayed before the Taj Mahal
That stands a living seneschal,
To guard a love that cannot die
For love outlives all history.
And once again our souls replied
When Sunrise on its crimson tide
Swept over Kinchinjunga's height
And bade the day destroy the night!

It seems to me when we respond
To sights like these, a subtle bond
Is forged, — and never heart from heart
Can after such a union part —
And so though oceans roll between
We're ever linked in what has been —
" Es ist so schon gewesen, " Friend,
That such a tie can never end!