"Ha' done! ha' done!" said the Colonel's son.
"Put up the steel at your sides!
Last night ye had struck at a Border thief--
tonight 'tis a man of the Guides!"
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
THE LAST SUTTEE
Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives,
disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken out
of the palace had not the gates been barred.
But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, passed
through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing,
she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. This he did, not
knowing who she was.
Udai Chand lay sick to death
In his hold by Gungra hill.
All night we heard the death-gongs ring
For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,
All night beat up from the women's wing
A cry that we could not still.
All night the barons came and went,
The lords of the outer guard:
All night the cressets glimmered pale
On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,
Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,
That clinked in the palace yard.
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