Branch of the henna-tree, Blown in a temple garden far away In that unfading East across the sea, O for one waft of perfume from your spray To cheer the heart in me!
Flower of the champa white, Sown by the evening wind where dusky feet Have worn the temple pavement with their beat, I would lie down and give my soul to-night Could I but breathe your sweet!
Note of the temple gong At sunset clanging through the dusty gold, Since last I heard your nightly music told It seems as though the months were ages long And joy itself grown old.
Heart of the East, my heart, Laden with your remembrance, may not rest; The very winds that blow from east to west From out that far horizon-line, impart Your whisper, trebly blest.
Sound of the temple drum, Like distant beating of the march of fate, Through the long years your voice is never dumb, Calling, at sundown, from the temple gate To me, who cannot come.
❦
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.
Transcriber’s Notes
Possible printer’s errors were generally retained, including odd andinconsistent hyphenations, spellings, and punctuations.
Italics, =Bolds=, and +Small Caps+ have been marked as so.
Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of their respectivestanza.
Where missing in certain poems, the fleuron ❦ symbol/illustration hasbeen silently added to the end.
These poems have had their individual indentation or stanzasstandardized within each poem: The Lost Track, The Soul, New Year’sEve, With Military Honours.
Quotation marks have been added to the 2nd stanza of Time and Space:‘How far, my dear, has your hand gone from mine In these long days andmonths since they have met?’
In the 5th stanza of The Valley of the Kings, the final comma was keptinstead of replacing it with a period.The section number of God is Great has been changed to “V.” to matchthe Table of Contents.