Poems by Sir Alfred C. Lyall :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Latest news from Afghanistan promises ill for future tranquillity. The Amir has failed in conciliating the Duranis, there is jealousy at Herat . . . . the Kohistanis are discontented . . . . the Ghilzais are restless, Lughman tribes are showing uneasiness . . . . No doubt the situation is far from reassuring, and calls for great tact and administrative ability on the Amir's part.”—Times telegram, 15th December, 1881.

Scene.—The Bála Hissar at Kábul. The Amir soliloquises:

Thus is my banishment ended; it's twelve long years, well nigh,
Since I fought the last of my lost fights, and saw my best men die;

They hunted me over the passes, and up to the Oxus stream,
We had just touched land on the far side as we saw their spearheads gleam.

Then came the dolorous exile, the life in a conquered land
Where the Frank had trodden on Islam; the alms at a stranger's hand;
While here in the fort of my fathers my bitterest foe held sway;
He was ten years building his kingdom, it all fell down in a day.

May he rest, the Amir Sher Ali, in his tomb by the holy shrine;
The virtues of God are pardon and pity, they never were mine;
They have never been ours, in a kingdom all stained with the blood of our kin,

Where the brothers embrace in the war-field, and the reddest sword must win.

And yet when I think of Sher Ali, as he lies in his sepulchre low,
How he died betrayed, heartbroken, 'twixt infidel friend and foe,
Driven from his throne by the English, and scorned by the Russian, his guest,
I am well content with the vengeance, and I see God works for the best.

But all His ways are warnings; and I, God's slave, must heed
How I bargain for help with the Káfir, or lean on a venomous reed;
For never did chief more sorely need Heaven for his aid and stay
Than the man who would reign in this country, and tame Afgháns for a day.

I look from a fort half-ruined on Kábul spreading below,
On the near hills crowned with cannon, and the far hills piled with snow;
Fair are the vales well watered, and the vines on the upland swell,
You might think you were reigning in Heaven—I know I am ruling Hell.

For there's hardly a room in my palace but a kinsman there was killed,
And never a street in the city but with false fierce curs is filled;
With a mob of priests, and fanatics, and all my mutinous host;
They follow my steps, as the wolves do, for a prince who slips is lost.

And they eye me askance, the Mullahs, the bigots who preach and pray,

Who followed my march with curses till I scattered Ayúb that day;
They trusted in texts and forgot that the chooser of kings is a sword;
There are twenty now silent and stark, for I showed them the ways of the Lord.

And far from the Suleiman heights come the sounds of the stirring of tribes,
Afreedi, Hazára, and Ghilzi, they clamour for plunder or bribes;
And Herát is but held by a thread; and the Usbeg has raised Badukshán;
And the chief may sleep sound, in his grave, who would rule the unruly Afghán.

Shall I stretch my right hand to the Indus, that England may fill it with gold?
Shall my left beckon aid from the Oxus? the Russian blows hot and blows cold;

The Afghán is but grist in their mill, and the waters are moving it fast,
Let the stone be the upper or nether, it grinds him to powder at last.

And the lord of the English writes, “Order, and justice, and govern with laws,”
And the Russian he sneers and says, “Patience, and velvet to cover your claws;”
But the kingdoms of Islam are crumbling, and round me a voice ever rings
Of death, and the doom of my country; Shall I be the last of its kings?