Shuhur, Jeypore

A LONELY grave, far from all kindred ties;
Lonely like life, and that was past afar
From friends and home. 'Tis well that youth has hopes
That gladden with the future present hours ;
Or else how sorrowful would seem the time
Which parts the young bird from its parent nest,
To wing its passage through the dreary world.
Alas ! hope is not prophecy,—we dream,
But rarely does the glad fulfilment come :
We leave our land and we return no more;
Or come again, the weary and the worn.
But yonder grave, where the dark branches droop,
The only sign of mourning, early closed
O'er the young English stranger ;—former love
And other days were warm about his heart,
When it grew cold forever . . . . . . .
And many are the tombs that scattered lie
Alone neglected, o’er the Indian plains—
’Tis the worst curse, on this our social world,
Fortune’s perpetual presence—wealth, which now
Is like life’s paramount necessity.
For this, the household band is broken up,
The hearth made desolate—and sundered hearts
Left to forget or break. For this the earth
Is cover'd with a thousand English graves,
By whose side none remain to weep or pray ;
Alas ! we do mistake, and vainly buy
Our golden idols at too great a price.
I’d rather share the lowest destiny,
That dares not look beyond the present day,
But treads on native ground, breathes native air,—
Than win the wealth of worlds beyond the wave;
And pine and perish ’neath a foreign sky.

* Shuhur is a small town, in a wild part of Jeypore. The recent death of a young acquaintance in its neighbourhood, led lo the above lines. Every traveller alludes to the melancholy appearance of European burying-grounds; without mourners or memorial, and almost without the common decencies of sepulture.