He lay for four days, taking no food, and only wetting his lips with the

water which his sole surviving son proffered from time to time. His

heart was crushed, he was full of years, his end was near; and his son,

knowing this, was dumb with sorrow. On the evening of the fourth day he

turned his face to the boy, and spoke, "Son, well beloved,

My parting hour is nigh;

A heavenly peace should glorify

A life approved

By God, by man, by mine own soul;

The record of my stainless years unroll--

My years beset

From infancy to age with pitfalls deep

In pathway winding aye on mountain steep

Of perilous obedience, and yet

In bitterness of soul I lay me down,

Of home bereft, with hope and creed o'erthrown

In woe that will not weep;

My reeling spirit ere from sense set free

Is loosed from mooring, beaten to and fro,

And in the throbbing, quick'ning flesh I know

The lone desertion of the Shoreless Sea.

O Brotherhood!

O hope so high, so fair,

That would the wreck of this sad world repair

Had ye but stood!

Can God forget?

This Khalsa of his own supreme decree

Vanquished, debased, in loss of liberty

Has lost its own mysterious entity.

And yet, and yet,

A strange persuasion fills my breast that He

Who wrecked my home,

Who bade my people from their mountains flee

And friendless roam,

Will soon with tenderest pity welcome me,

And, if my lips be dumb,

Will frame the prayer that fills my dying breast,

And give my heavy-laden spirit rest,

And grant me what He will--His will is best.

I go--I know not where,

Upward or down, or toward the setting sun

None knows,--some shadowy goal is won,

Some unseen issue near,

So oft with death I journeyed hand in hand,

The spectral pageant of his border land

I do not fear.

* * * * * Weep not when I have passed, but go thy way,

Thou art not portionless nor service free,

A warrior Sikh, for thee a high behest

Abides, to claim thy true-sword's ministry.

Go, Atma, from those echoing hillsides, lest

The haunting voices of the vanished say

'Vain is thy travail, poor thine utmost store,

We loved and laboured, lo, we are no more,'

And thy fond heart in fealty to our clay

Fail in allegiance to the name we bore.

Go, seek thy kinsman, to a brother's hand

I gave possession of a gem more fair,

More costly far than gold, than rubies rare,

Thy part and heritage, of him demand

Its just bestowal, and with dauntless tread

Pursue the pathway of thy holy dead."




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