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Griffen's Debt

Full six miles down the valley. So we said
He was a victim to the Demon Drink,
And moralized upon him for a week,
And then forgot him. Which was natural.

But in the valley of the Gauri, men
Beneath the shadow of the big new dam
Relate a foolish legend of the flood,
Accounting for the little loss of life
(Only those five and twenty villagers)
In this wise: On the evening of the flood,
They heard the groaning of the rotten dam,
And voices of the Mountain Devils. Then
An incarnation of the local God,

Mounted upon a monster-neighing horse,
And flourishing a flail-like whip, came down,
Breathing ambrosia, to the villages,

And fell upon the simple villagers

With yells beyond the power of mortal throat.
And blows beyond the power of mortal band,

And smote them with the flail-like whip, and drove
Them clamorous with terror up the hill,
And scattered, with the monster-neighing steed,
Their crazy cottages about their ears,

And generally cleared those villages.

Then came the water, and the local God,
Breathing ambrosia, flourishing his whip,
And mounted on his monster-neighing steed,
Went down the valley with the flying trees

And residue of homesteads, while they watched
Safe on the mountain-side these wondrous things,
And knew that they were much beloved of Heaven.
Wherefore, and when the dam was newly built,
They raised a temple to the local God,
And burned all manner of unsavory things

Upon his altar, and created priests,

And blew into a conch, and banged a bell,
And told the story of the Gauri flood
With circumstance and much embroidery.

So he, the whiskified Objectionable,
Unclean, abominable, out-at-heels,
Became the tutelary Deity

Of all the Gauri valley villages;
And may in time become a Solar Myth.

IN SPRINGTIME

My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach,

And the koïl sings above it, in the siris by the well; From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's chattering speech,

And the blue-jay screams and flutters where the cheery sat-bhai dwell.

But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the koïl's note is strange;

I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom

burdened bough.

Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds

of Springtime range

Give me back one day in England, for it 's Spring in England now!

Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown fields blowing chill,

From the furrow of the ploughshare streams the fragrance of the loam,

And the hawk nests on the cliff-side and the jackdaw in the hill,

And my heart is back in England mid the sights and sounds of Home.

Kol: Nightingale.

Siris: A forest tree, the acacia.

Sat-bhai: A sort of thrush.

But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of rose and peach is;

Ah! koil, little koil, singing on the siris bough,

In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless beil-like speech is

Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in England now?

THE GALLEY SLAVE

Oh, gallant was our galley from her cavern steering.

wheel

To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered

steel;

The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air,

But no galley on the water with our galley could compare !

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton, and our masts were stepped in gold

We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold; The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,

As we gripped the kicking sweep-head, and we made that galley go.

It was merry in the galley, for we reveled now and then

If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!

As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss,

And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover's

kiss.

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