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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WIDOWER OF HAIDERABUD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At morning when I wake, no more
Last Line: Let not thy midnight be so long!
Alternate Author Name(s): Duclaux, Madame Emile; Darmesteter, Mary; Robinson, A. Mary F.
Subject(s): Widows & Widowers


AT morning when I wake, no more
I hear her in the twilit hour,
Who beats the clay upon the floor,
Or grinds the sorghum into flour.

And when at sunset I return,
I half forget the quiet child,
Still brightening up her brazen urn,
Who never raised her head or smiled.

But when the night draws on, I fear!
...She stands before me, pale as ash,
And still the trembling voice I hear
That bleats beneath my mother's lash.

And I remember how she died --
Hanged to the flowering mango-bough;
For I behold the Suicide,
And it is I that tremble now.

...My mother wears upon her breast
A silver image of the dead.
The best of all we have the best
We offer her with bended head.

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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