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Show MEDITATIONS OF A HINDOO PRINCE. By A. C. Lyall All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and the steps of a God?. Westward across the ocean, and northward beyond be-yond the snow, Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know? Here, in the mystical India, the deities hover and swarm Like the wild bees heard In the treetops, or the gusts of a gathering storm; In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, Yet we all say, 'Whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?' A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings As they bow to a mystic symbol or 'the figures of ancient 'kings; And the Incense rises ever, and raises the endless end-less cry Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loth to die. For destiny drives us to'gether, like deer in a pass of the hills, Above is the sky, and around us the sound and the shot that kills; Pushed by a power we see not, anr struck by a hand unknown, We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone. The trees waveashadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim, And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim; " And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest, !Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide? " The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side. For ever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death. v Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first oi an ancient name, Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and wo men who died in the flame; They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they i are spirits who guard our race, For I I watch and worship; they sit with a marble mar-ble face. And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests, 1 The revels and riots unholy, the dark unspeak able 'feasts! What have they wrung from the silence? Hath even a whisper come Of the secret Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb. Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea? "The secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me? It is naught but the wide-world story, how the earth and the heavens began, How .the gods are glad and angry, and the Deity once was man," I had thought "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdlo the earth with a spell, They have fathomed the depths we float on, or i measured the unknown main." Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water, and ' what if the mirror break? Shall it pass as a camp that is str.uck, as a camp that is gathered and gone From the sands that were lampt-lit at eve and at morning are level and lone? Is there naught in the heavens above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled, But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world? The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep, With the dirge, and sounds of lamenting, anr1 1 voices of women who weep. Mirror. |
