The Widower of Haiderabad
We scatter water on her grave,
We burn the sacred lamps for her;
For her the fumes of incense wave
And fill the house with smells of myrrh.
****
. . . The day we bore her to the tomb
We paused again and yet again
To scatter down the sandy coomb
Our mustard seed in ample rain.
For so we knew that in the night,
When homewards up the path she goes.
All round her in the dreamy light
A pale phantasmal garden blows.
She laughs to see the unhoped-for cloud
Of waving, swaying, golden flowers,
And gathering up her trailing shroud
She flits amid the stems for hours.
So every night may she delay
And fill her arms with faery bloom,
Until the dawning of the day
Recall the wanderer to the tomb!
So we may sleep in safety here,
And fear no ghost. . . . And yet, for hours,
I feel her drifting slowly near
Amid the withering mustard flowers.
O God! to them that call on Thee
Give life, give riches, make them strong.
Or make them holy,—but to me
Let not Thy midnight be so long!
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