the jingle of her anklets will haunt thy ears, as it does
mine, like the sound of a stream, keeping time to the dance of her two
little feet as they come towards thee, till thou wilt find thyself
wishing that some strange magic might keep on drawing thee back for
ever, so only that thou couldst go on gazing, as she kept on coming,
like an everlasting incarnation of the rapture of anticipation of
touching and caressing what it maddens thee to see. Maharaj, I tell
thee, that were the three great worlds but one colossal oyster shell,
she is its very pearl. And like a cunning diver, I have been down into
the sea, and seen it, and now I can take thee where it is, to see it for
thyself. And as I think, thou wilt discover, she is a quarry to thy
taste, who will save thee from the necessity of seeking for others in
the ashes of thy town.

II

THE THIRST OF AN ANTELOPE

I

_Gazelle, gazelle, dost understand
Why the old skulls grin in this silent land?_
My feet are fleet, and I drink at will,
There is something blue in the distance still.

II

_But the old skulls grin in the silent waste,
Gazelle, gazelle, make haste, make haste!_
I travel fast, and I fear no ill,
There is something blue in the distance still.

III

_The old skulls grinned in the silent sand,
They beckoned her like a bony hand:
Gazelle, gazelle, hast drunk thy fill?
Is there something blue in the distance, still?_

KURANGI.

I

A DAPPLED DAWN

I

A DAPPLED DAWN

I

Now in the meanwhile Bimba, when his cousin drove him off his throne,
had fled away to the eastern quarter, taking his daughter with him. And
he took up his home in the forest, and there he lived, in a little hut
on the side of a hill, just where the desert ended, and the trees of the
wood began, having fallen from the state of a King to that of a fugitive
and a hunter, living by the chase and the fruits of the forest trees,
and drinking streams instead of wine. And so he continued to live, year
by year, mourning for his wife, and bitterly hating his cousin,
disgusted with the world, with no companion but his daughter. And
gradually, as time went on, he utterly forgot his kingdom and all his
former life, growing ever fonder of the forest that he lived in, and
saying to himself: Now is the wood become my wife, since my other wife
is gone.[24] And the only thing that matters now is the daughter that
she left behind, as if to keep my memory green of