Studies at Delhi, 1876

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I.-The Hindu Ascetic.


  Here as I sit by the Jumna bank,
  Watching the flow of the sacred stream,
  Pass me the legions, rank on rank,
  And the cannon roar, and the bayonets gleam.

  Is it a god or a king that comes?
  Both are evil, and both are strong;
  With women and worshipping, dancing and drums,
  Carry your gods and your kings along.

  Fanciful shapes of a plastic earth,
  These are the visions that weary the eye;
  These I may 'scape by a luckier birth,
  Musing, and fasting, and hoping to die.

  When shall these phantoums flicker away?
  Like the smoke of the guns on the wind-swept hill,
  Like the sounds and colours of yesterday:
  And the soul have rest, and the air be still.


II.-Badminton.


  Hardly a shot from the gate we stormed,
  Under the Moree battlement's shade;
  Close to the glacis our game was formed,
  There had the fight been, and there we played.

  Lightly the demoiselles tittered and leapt,
  Merrily capered the players all;
  North, was the garden where Nicholson slept,
  South, was the sweep of a battered wall.

  Near me a Musalmán, civil and mild,
  Watched as the shuttlecocks rose and fell;
  And he said, as he counted his beads and smiled,
  "God smite their souls to the depths of hell."

© Alfred Comyn Lyall