Page:With Sa'di in the Garden, or The Book of Love (1888).djvu/19

By pan and bangle shops, by weaving-grounds,
By creaking Persian wheels, rice-fields, and tanks
Winds the cantonment-way, made populous
With tread of patient feet, which come and go
Doing the errands of their placid day.
You meet the brown-limbed laden coolie girls,
The ekkas with full freight of pots and wives,
The camels stalking slow, the palanquins,
The belted peon, the sweetmeat-man, the ox
Grave-pacing with his spurting water-skins;
The spangled dancing-girls, the fishermen,
Byragis, sepoys, hamals, jungle-folk,
The people of an Agra afternoon:
When, suddenly,—wheels stop, bridles are drawn,
One cries, "The Taj!" We are at entrance gate
Of India's pride, the Tomb, the House of Rest
For Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the "Exalted one"—
Queen of her Sultan's heart, and Hindostan—
Here by her Lord and Lover laid to sleep.