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

Well; I've walked the jail, and the Courts I've seen,
The school is in order, the streets are clean,
And the roads are swept and mended:
The treasury's right, you've got the keys?
So now, at the spring of the evening breeze,
Just leave me to linger among those trees,
I'll come when the twilight's ended.

Yes, the garden now looks spruce and trim,
Yet the old trees still, though decayed and grim,
Stand waving as if they knew me;

All else is changed since I saw the ground,
(How the roses bloom on that sloping mound!)
And the long lean branches swaying around
With their shadowy arms pursue me.

As I cross the flower-bed, laid with taste
Where the old grove sheltered a sandy waste,
How soft the geraniums gleam in
The light of a dusty crimson sky!
Yes, only the trees remember, and I,
Things once spoken, and done, hard by
The spot where we now stand dreaming.

That year when the tempest of mutiny broke,
And the empire swayed like a storm-bent oak,
When the sepoys gave no quarter;
When Islam had risen and Delhi fell,
And this plain was a furnace hot as hell—

We were camped, three English, beside that well:
We had nothing but shade and water.

Hour after hour, till the day was spent,
We had watched our restless regiment,
And the soldiers whispering round us
In the glaring noon-tide heat; and yet
Our hearts sank low when the red orb set,
And the soft dark night like a falling net
In its unseen meshes bound us.

He was my Colonel and she was his wife;
We had little comfort or hope in life;
And he said “Is it worth complaining,
As you look at the sullen sepoys' line,
That they bide but the hour and await the sign
That shall end our cares in the fierce sunshine
And the ills of a rough campaigning?

“It shall never be heard in the English host
That I lost my colours and left my post
From a treacherous band to hide me;
We are trapped and hemmed in this cursed wood,
Yet stand I ready” ('twas there he stood)
“To die as a Christian soldier should,
With my wife and my friend beside me.”

Then he clasped her close in a warm embrace,
And he took my hand; but I marked her face
And the flashing glance she gave me:
For the mutinous eyes said, “Life is sweet
While nerves have courage and hearts can beat;
Will you crouch like a hare at the hunter's feet,
Will you die like a fool, or save me?”

So I saddled in silence our horses three,
And I brought them there, to that tamarind tree,
And the night, as now, was falling,
And the air was heavy, as now, with scent,
And just outside at the sepoy tent
The armed sentry came and went,
We could hear his comrades calling;

And I whispered “Up; 'twill be lighter soon,
See the faint foreglow of the rising moon,
Let your wife mount quick—God speed her,
Her Arab can gallop, he needs no lash,
We can break their line with a sudden dash;
But a man may fall when the volleys flash,
So will you ride last, or lead her?”

Lightly the lady to saddle sprung;
But the other's hand to the bridle clung,

And he said “Do ye all betray me?
I serve the Queen, and I trust the Lord;
Shall I stain mine honour and break my word?
I move not hence while I wear this sword,
And I charge you both, obey me.”

Then none for a moment spoke or moved;
One look she gave me, the woman I loved,
And said but one word, “Listen;”
As there came one tap of the sepoy's drum,
And the light air shook with the tramp and the hum
Of a moving crowd, and I said “They come,
I can see their bayonets glisten;

“They come; You boast of a soldier's faith,
Will it screen your wife from a cruel death?
Remember the troth you plighted,
And your home in the far-off summer days,
And a young life lost for an empty phrase;”

But he said “Wherever I stay, she stays:
We shall meet our end united.”

Then I cried, “'Tis the craze of a fevered brain,
Will you take your hand from her bridle rein,
Will you mount and ride?” “No, never,”
He said, And she bent from her saddle low,
And she touched my cheek and whispered “Go,”
With her eyes all full of despair and woe;
“Good-bye sweetheart, for ever!”

And then? One shot, and her rein was free,
And fast and furious I and she
Out of the grove were flying;
The white smoke rose, and the leaves were stirred,
But only the solemn branches heard
Or sound or motion, of sign or word,
As he lay beneath them dying.

A shout, a volley, a rushing ride:
The low moon led us, and side by side
We followed from dark to dawning
Over the streams and the silent plain;
All sights and shadows and sounds again
And figures are flitting across my brain,
And the meeting of eyes at morning.

Yes; this was the hour, and that was the spot,
And the mute trees know who fired that shot,
But the secret well they're keeping;
How they beckon and bend in the gathering gloom
O'er the sloping mound where the roses bloom!
Can that be an old forgotten tomb,
Is it there that the Colonel's sleeping?