Verses Written in India

fast fading night they'll be gone. Look up, see above you the star-land Wanes dim with the flush of the dawn, You are called from your flight to the far land, And your visions must break with the morn. But your soul, by sweet memories haunted, Still wanders, forgetful and free, To the West, and in echoes enchanted Hears the long winding plash of the sea. Ah, sleep, though the falling dews wet you; Ah, rest in that home while you may; Other scenes, other sounds, shall beset you When you wake, and your dreams pass away. When the sun beats aflame on your faces, What the old fighters felt, ye shall feel, When the pitiless strife of the races Flashes out in the smoke and the steel; For the plain, bare and burning, lies yonder, And perchance, when the war-cloud has passed, Never more, day or night, shalt thou wander And thy sleep shall be dreamless at last. chapter{Section 4IV. AFTER THE SKIRMISH. Rohilcund, 1858. 'MiD the broken grass of a trampled glade, Where the bayonets met and the fight was sorest, We had found him lying ; and there we laid Our friend in the depth of an Indian forest; Just as the evening shadow's pall Over his grave from the hills came streaming, By the rippled fret and the eddying fall Of a snow-fed river, cool and creaming. With the funeral march still echoing round, We had spread the mould o'er his tartan gory; But as we turned from the shapeless mound Swee...