Page:Poets of John Company.djvu/140

Do thou, Macaulay, ready make,
To Sikkim's Chief my greeting take
And see his father's solemn pact
Is true fulfilled in word and act.
And hie thee to the frontier far.
Journey towards the Northern Star,
Speak fair the Lord of Kambajong
And seek his friendship new:
The path is steep, the road is long,
But the purpose high and true.
Say that you cross the snow drifts sad
But to seek the grasp of friendship's hand,
We wish but the welfare of the land
To make both peoples glad."

Macaulay took his Chief's commands,
And, for that the city was long and steep.
And the ice was thick and the snow was deep.
And the wind that blows across the sands
Of Tartary is biting keen.
He called companions three
To go with him across the sheen
Of the snow fields wild and free.
First genial Evans—wisest he
Of all wise lawyers, and his place
At Bar and Board is ever high,—
Sage in council, for a space
Fled from the wiles of Dorson's race
And Rent Bill papers dry.
To breathe the air of Sikkim free,
To wander by her purling rills
And seek the beauty of her hills
The blueness of her sky.

And Paul who Sikkim loves so well
That still the native chieftains tell,
With kindly smile and grasp of hand,
That of the Sahib log who cross