Thoughts: Mahomed Akram

A poem by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

If some day this body of mine were burned
(It found no favour alas! with you)
And the ashes scattered abroad, unurned,
Would Love die also, would Thought die too?
But who can answer, or who can trust,
No dreams would harry the windblown dust?

Were I laid away in the furrows deep
Secure from jackal and passing plough,
Would your eyes not follow me still through sleep
Torment me then as they torture now?
Would you ever have loved me, Golden Eyes,
Had I done aught better or otherwise?

Was I overspeechful, or did you yearn
When I sat silent, for songs or speech?
Ah, Beloved, I had been so apt to learn,
So apt, had you only cared to teach.
But time for silence and song is done,
You wanted nothing, my Golden Sun!

What should you want of a waning star?
That drifts in its lonely orbit far
Away from your soft, effulgent light
In outer planes of Eternal night?