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

Many a year have my sons gone forth;
Their bones are bleaching in field and flood;
They have carried my name from the ancient North,
They have borne it high through water and blood.

While the mariner's strength, and his ship, might last
Steering straight for the Orient lands,
Nor sweeping billow nor tearing blast
Could wrench the helm from his straining hands;

And the onward march of my soldiers' line,
Where was it broken by sword or sun?
The toil was theirs, and the prize was mine—
Thus was an empire lost and won.

Now my frontiers march on the Himalay snow,
And my landmarks stand on its loftiest crest;
Where the winds blow soft on the pines below,
There shall my legions halt and rest;

And the men of the cities in all the plain
From the silent hills to the sounding sea,
And a thousand tribes in the vast champaign,
They follow no leader or lord but me.

II.—WEST TO EAST.

Your life is sad in the dust and the sun,
You dream and gaze at the brazen sky;
Let the gods be many, or God be none,
One Fate stands ever, that all shall die.

Let sorrow or sleep in the shadow lurk,
We are yet in the range of the broad sun rays;
And the night fast cometh when none shall work,
So strive and be glad in the long light days.

‘Fast and Pray,’ said the sages of Ind;
We know not what penance and prayer may give,

For visions are fading, and words are wind;
The Faith we bring you is, Labour and Live.

Let the hard earth soften, and toil bring ease,
Let the king be just and the laws be strong;
Ye shall flourish and spread like the sheltered trees,
And the storms shall end, and the ancient wrong.

Some arms deep rusted, an old world rhyme,
A broken idol, a ruined fane,
May linger as waifs of the wild foretime,
When the gods were cruel and men were slain.

The lightning that shivers, the storms that sweep,
The wide full flood, and the drowning waves,

Still do ye fear them, and worship and weep?
They are still your gods? They shall be your slaves.

Ye have courted them vainly with passion and prayer;
Their gifts are but silence and infinite rest;
If the heavens are empty the earth may be fair,
There is one life only, so labour is best.

As the rivers wander and currents change
Till the quickening stream is a barren bed,
So the thoughts of men like the waters range
From ways forgotten and worships dead.

Let the temples moulder in gathering sand,
Let the stones lie strewn in the cedar grove;

Ye shall rule like gods in a glorious land;
Ye shall live by knowledge, and peace, and love.

III.—EAST TO WEST.

O men of the wandering sea-borne race,
Your venture was high, but your wars are done,
Ye have rent my veil, ye behold my face;
What is the land that your arms have won?

Scored with the brand of the blinding heat
And the wrath divine, and the sins of man,
And the fateful tramp of the conqueror's feet,
It has suffered all, since the world began.

The forces that fashion, the hands that mould
Are the winds fire-laden, the sky, the rain;
Will the storms abate or the sun grow cold?

They are gods no more, but their spells remain.

For the sun shall scorch and the fierce winds blow,
And the pest strike sudden, and hunger slay;
And if eyes see all that a man shall know,
What is evil or ease for a passing day?

If the lords of our life be pleasure and pain,
And the earth is their kingdom, and none may flee,
Ye may take their wages who wear their chain;
I may serve them never; and sleep is free.

Ye shall float and fade in the world of sense
As the clouds that hover, the rays that gleam:

No hand shows whither, no tongue says whence—
Let me rest nor be troubled, if all is dream.

Let the deeps flow round and the darkness fall
Over the scenes of your glory and strife;
Let the shadows pass from the prison wall
For a moment lit by the lamp of life;

For the stories of men and of days that are gone,
Of towns now dust, of a vanished race,
Are but old names carved on the dungeon stone;
They lived, and laboured, and left their trace.

And the burden of thought and the travail of care

Weigh down the soul in its wandering flight;
The sun burns ever, the plains lie bare;
It is death brings shade, and the dreamless night.