From the Cliff where She lay in the Sun,

            Fell the Stone

     To the Tarn² where the daylight is lost;

     So She fell from the light of the Sun,

            And alone.

 

     Now the fall was ordained³ from the first,

     With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,

            But the Stone

     Knows only Her life is accursed,

     As She sinks in the depths of the Tarn,

            And alone.

 

     Oh, Thou who has builded the world

     Oh, Thou who hast lighted the Sun!

     Oh, Thou who hast darkened the Tarn!

           Judge Thou

     The Sin of the Stone that was hurled⁴

     By the Goat from the light of the Sun,

     As She sinks in the mire⁵ of the Tarn,

           Even now—even now—even now!

 

     From the Unpublished Papers of McIntosh Jellaludin.

          “Say, is it dawn, is it dusk in thy Bower⁶,

           Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?

           Oh be it night—be it—”

 

Here he fell over a little camel-colt that was sleeping in the Serai where the horse-traders and the best of the blackguards from Central Asia live; and, because he was very drunk indeed and the night was dark, he could not rise again till I helped him. That was the beginning of my acquaintance with McIntosh Jellaludin. When a loafer, and drunk, sings The Song of the Bower, he must be worth cultivating. He got off the camel's back and said, rather thickly:—“I—I—I'm a bit screwed, but a dip in Loggerhead will put me right again; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds about the mare's knees?”

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