■ l i ! • ' ,
8 f i l >
Pi
good wishes and snatches of melody. We paddled home
on a golden flood, sky and water dyed to an unearthly
brilliance by the setting sun. The islets in the lake
were scarcely less radiant than the tiny pink and purple-
puffed cloudlets that were drifting away from the
central glory in the west behind Hari Parbat, while far
away to the southward the Pir Panjal showed their
rose-stained snows, and nearer Haramuk, steep and
solitary, towered against the evening sky.
From a gay boat-load rose the sounds of a song of
love and flowers, accompanied by the light twanging of
tiny stringed instruments—
The evening air is very sweet, from off the island bowers
Come scents of moghra* trees in bloom and choicest Persian flowers.
The moghra flowers th a t smell so sweet,
When Love’s young fancies play,
The acrid moghra flowers, still sweet,
Though Love is burnt away.
The boat goes drifting uncontrolled, the rowers row no more,
They deftly turn the slender prow towards the further shore.
The moghra flowers, the moghra flowers,
While youth’s quick pulses play,
They are so sweet, they still are sweet,
Though passion burns away.
0 silver lake and silver night and tender silver sky,
Where, as the hours so swiftly pass, the moon rides white and high.
Ah ! moghra flowers, sweet moghra flowers,
So dear to youth a t play,
Ah ! sweet and subtle moghra flowers,
That only last a day.
* “ Moghra,” the large double jessamine.