97
Turn not to any Western Power
For help ; it would thy heart devour
And o'er thy corpse with dripping hand,
Brandish with glee the assassin's brand."
Always an ardent admirer of the true great-
ness of Europe, he could yet be roused to indigna-
tion by an act of injustice as in this case.
" Dost see with joy thine empire rise ? V
Mark its decline and fall! v.
There stands before thy dazzled eyes
The writing on the wall! " \
He wrote these lines when Abyssinia had been
conquered by Italy and his vision showed the end
of Mussolini's venture as we see it now,
Those who read his verse carefully find that
he is able to choose instinctively what is elegant,
but has no love of art for art's sake. His nature
inclines to a free unadorned style of expression
with sufficient fervour in it to be convincing. He
has told us all this in his lines : To the Reader, at
the end of his Islamic Poems.
" I take the plain and forceful word
That conies to hand a trusty sword;
Enough that it should flash the fire
Of aught that doth my soul inspire.
Enough that it should dart its gleam /
To hearts that toil and hearts that dream f
Till they are roused and learn to feel I
And bow where I have learnt to kneel." r
" It is some satisfaction to me as a Dakhni, "
Sir Nizamat Jung once wrote, " to give some
of my heart-service to my country in the shape of
English poems. They may have little value as