Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834/The Zenana - Kishen Kower
KISHEN KOWER.*[1]
"Bold as the falcon that faces the sun,
Wild as the streams when in torrents they run,
Fierce as the flame when the jungle’s on fire,
Are the chieftains who call on the day-star as Sire.
Since the Moghuls were driven from stately Mandoo,†Jumna Musjid, Mandoo
And left but their ruins their reign to renew,
Those hills have paid tribute to no foreign lord,
And their children have kept what they won by the sword.
Yet downcast each forehead, a sullen dismay
At Oudeypoor reigns in the Durbar‡ [2]to-day,
For bootless the struggle, and weary the fight,
Which Adjeit Sing pictures with frown black as night:—
"Oh fatal the hour, when Makundra's dark pass§ Pass of Makundra
Saw the blood of our bravest sink red in the grass;
And the gifts which were destined to honour the bride,
By the contest of rivals in crimson were dyed.
Where are the warriors who once wont to stand
The glory and rampart of Rajahstan’s land?
Ask of the hills for their young and their brave,
They will point to the valleys beneath as their grave.‖
The mother sits pale by her desolate hearth,
And weeps o’er the infant an orphan from birth;
While the eldest boy watches the dust on the spear,
Which as yet his weak hand is unable to rear.
The fruit is ungathered, the harvest unsown,
And the vulture exults o’er our fields as his own:Perawa
JUMMA MUSJID, MANDOO.
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† Jumma Musjid, Mandoo.—Mandoo is the deserted capital of the Mohammedan sovereigns of Malwa, who afterwards gave way to the dynasty of the Rajpoots: it is a proof of its former magnificence, that seven hundred elephants, in velvet housings, belonged to one of its monarchs. "The tiger now hath chief dominion there." The Building represented in the Plate, is said to be the finest and largest specimen of the Afghan Mosque in India.
THE PASS OF MAKUNDRA.
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§ The Pass of Makundra.—A rocky entrance to Malwa, well suited to be the scene of any predatory excursion.
PERAWA, - MALWA.
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‖ Perawa.—A small town in Malwa; doubtless, even within the last few years, witness to scenes like those sketched in the text. Like most mountain countries, the whole district was inhabited by a warlike and turbulent race; a curious anecdote of the inflammable nature of the people, is told in the History of Central India. "The war with the Pindarries was over, and the country was in a state of tolerable tranquillity, when a sudden agitation was produced among the peaceable inhabitants, by a number of cocoa-nuts being passed from village to village, with a mysterious direction to speed them in specific directions. The signal flew with unheard-of celerity. The potail of every village, wherever one of these cocoa-nuts came, carried it himself with breathless haste to another, to avert a curse, which was denounced upon all who impeded or stopped them for a moment. Every inquiry was instituted; the route of the signal was traced for several hundred miles, but no certain information was obtained; and a circumstance, which produced for upwards of a month a very serious sensation over all Central India, remains to this moment a complete mystery."—Elliot. It is really quite delightful to think that there should be such a thing as a mystery left in the world.
There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air,
And all for a woman whose face is too fair."
There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound
Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around,
When the voice of a woman arose in reply,
'The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.'
"Day breaks, and the earliest glory of morn
Afar o’er the tops of the mountains is borne;
Then the young Kishen Kower wandered through the green bowers,
That sheltered the bloom of the island of flowers;
Where a fair summer palace arose mid the shade,
Which a thousand broad trees for the noon-hour had made.
Far around spread the hills with their varying hue,
From the deepest of purple to faintest of blue;
On one side the courts of the Rana are spread,
The white marble studded with granite’s deep red;
While far sweeps the terrace, and rises the dome,
Till lost in the pure clouds above like a home.
Beside is a lake covered over with isles,
As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles:
Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs
From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings;
Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair,
Alone like a column aloft in the air;
While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend
Their boughs to the stream o’er whose mirror they bend.
The lily that queen-like uprears to the sun,
The loveliest face that his light is upon;
While beside stands the cypress, which darkens the wave
With a foliage meant only to shadow the grave.
But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all
Where ran the carved trellis around the light hall;
Where the green creeper’s starry wreaths, scented and bright,
Wooed the small purple doves ’mid their shelter to light;
There the proud oleander with white tufts was hung,
And the fragile clematis its silver showers flung,
And the nutmeg’s soft pink was near lost in the pride
Of the pomegranate blossom that blushed at its side.
There the butterflies flitted around on the leaves,
From which every wing its own colour receives;
There the scarlet finch past like a light on the wind,
And the hues of the bayas*[3] like sunbeams combined;
Till the dazzled eye sought from such splendours to rove,
And rested at last on the soft lilac dove;†[4]
Whose song seemed a dirge that at evening should be
Pour’d forth from the height of the sad cypress tree.
Her long dark hair plaited with gold on each braid;
Her feet bound with jewels which flash’d through the shade;
One hand filled with blossoms, pure hyacinth bells
Which treasure the summer’s first breath in their cells;
The other caressing her white antelope,
In all the young beauty of life and of hope.
The princess roved onwards, her heart in her eyes,
That sought their delight in the fair earth and skies.
Oh, loveliest time! oh, happiest day!
When the heart is unconscious, and knows not its sway,
When the favourite bird, or the earliest flower,
Or the crouching fawn’s eyes, make the joy of the hour,
And the spirits and steps are as light as the sleep
Which never has waken’d to watch or to weep.
She bounds o’er the soft grass, half woman half child,
As gay as her antelope, almost as wild.
The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years;
She has never known pain, she has never known tears,
And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart;
The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart.
"The midnight has fallen, the quiet, the deep,
Yet in yon Zenana none lie down for sleep.
Like frighted birds gathered in timorous bands,
The young slaves within it are wringing their hands.
The mother hath covered her head with her veil,
She weepeth no tears, and she maketh no wail;
But all that lone chamber pass silently by;
She has flung her on earth, to despair and to die.
But a lamp is yet burning in one dismal room,
Young princess; where now is thy morning of bloom?
Ah, ages, long ages, have passed in a breath,
And life’s bitter knowledge has heralded death.
At the edge of the musnud*[5] she bends on her knee,
While her eyes watch the face of the stern Chand Baee.†[6]
Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone
Of those high murky features grows almost her own;
And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow,
The spirit of heroes has entered her now.
"'Bring the death-cup, and never for my sake shall shame
Quell the pride of my house, or dishonour its name.'
She drained the sherbet, while Chand Baee looked on,
Like a warrior that marks the career of his son.
But life is so strong in each pure azure vein,
That they take not the venom—she drains it again.
The haughty eye closes, the white teeth are set,
And the dew-damps of pain on the wrung brow are wet:
The slight frame is writhing—she sinks to the ground;
She yields to no struggle, she utters no sound—
The small hands are clenched—they relax—it is past,
And her aunt kneels beside her—kneels weeping at last.
Again morning breaks over palace and lake,
But where are the glad eyes it wont to awake.
Weep, weep, ’mid a bright world of beauty and bloom,
For the sweet human flower that lies low in the tomb.
And wild through the palace the death-song is breathing,
And white are the blossoms, the slaves weep while wreathing,
To strew at the feet and to bind round the head,
Of her who was numbered last night with the dead:
They braid her long tresses, they drop the shroud o’er,
And gaze on her cold and pale beauty no more:
But the heart has her image, and long after years
Will keep her sad memory with music and tears."
- ↑ * Kishen Kower.—The history of Kishen Kower is of a later period than, properly speaking, belongs to my story. I trust the anachronism will be its own excuse. Without entering into the many intrigues to which she was sacrificed, it is only needful to observe, that her hand was claimed by the kings of Jeypour and Joudpour. A destructive war was the consequence, for marriage with the one must incur the enmity of the other. A weak father, and an ambitious minister, led to the immolation of the beautiful victim; an unmarried daughter being held to be the greatest possible disgrace.
- ↑ ‡ The court, or divan, to use a term familiar to most English readers.
- ↑ The Bayas.— Small crested sparrows, with bright yellow breasts.
- ↑ † The Kokle.—Miss Roberts, to whose "Oriental Scenes" I am indebted for so much information, gracefully and fancifully says, "When listening to the song of the kokle, its melancholy cadences, and abrupt termination, always impressed my mind with the idea, that the broken strains were snatches of some mournful story, too full of wo to be told at once."
- ↑ * The Musnud—A sort of matrass assigned as the place of honour, usually covered with gold cloth, velvet, or embroidery, and placed on the floor.
- ↑ † Chand Baee was the aunt of Kishen Kower, and on her devolved the task of preparing the unfortunate Princess.