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."