W A TALE OF TWO CITIES HERE the sober-coloured cultivator smiles Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, Hides and ghi; Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints Stands a City-Charnock chose it-packed away By the sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp And the City and the Viceroy, as we see, Once, two hundred years ago, the trader came Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed, Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth Till the country from Peshawar to Ceylon Was his own. A TALE OF TWO CITIES Thus the mid-day halt of Charnock-more's the pity! As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed, Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built Palace, byre, hovel-poverty and pride- And, above the packed and pestilential town, But the Rulers in that City by the Sea, Fled, with each returning Spring-tide from its ills From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat, For the country from Peshawar to Ceylon But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain Now the resting-place of Charnock, 'neath the palms, Asks an alms, And the burden of its lamentation is Briefly, this: 'Because, for certain months, we boil and stew, So should you. Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspire In our fire!' And for answer to the argument, in vain We explain That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot cry:- That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in, Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints And mature-consistent soul-his plan for stealing Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile, England's isle; Let the City Charnock pitched on-evil day!— Go Her way. Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors Though Her enterprise and energy secure Though 'out-station orders punctually obeyed' Still, for rule, administration, and the rest, Simla's best. IN SPRING TIME Y garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach, MY And the koil sings above it, in the siris by the well, From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's chattering speech, And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery sat-bhai dwell. But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the koil's note is strange; I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened bough. Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Spring time range Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in England now! Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown fields blowing chill, From the furrow of the ploughshare streams the fragrance of the loam, And the hawk nests on the cliff-side and the jackdaw in the hill, And my heart is back in England 'mid the sights and sounds of Home. |