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Christmas in India · Ririro.com - Poetry

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  Speaker 1: Christmas in India, dim dawn behind the Tamarisks, the sky
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  Speaker 1: is saffron yellow, as the women in the village grind
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  Speaker 1: the corn, and the parrots seek the riverside, each calling
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  Speaker 1: to his fellow that the day, the staring Easter day
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  Speaker 1: is born. Oh the white dust on the highway, Oh
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  Speaker 1: the stenches in the byeway, Oh the clammy fog that
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  Speaker 1: hovers over earth. And at home they're making merry neath
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the white and scarlet berry. What part have India's exiles
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: in their mirth full day? Begin the tamarisks. The sky
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  Speaker 1: is blue and staring, as the cattle crawl afield beneath
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  Speaker 1: the yoke, and they bear one or the field path
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  Speaker 1: who is past all hope or caring to the got
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  Speaker 1: below the curling wreaths of smoke. Call on Rama, going
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  Speaker 1: slowly as ye bear a brother, lowly, call on Rama,
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  Speaker 1: he may hear perhaps your voice. With our hymn books
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  Speaker 1: and our psalters, we appeal to other altars, and today
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  Speaker 1: we bid good Christian men rejoice. High noon Behind the Tamarisks,
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  Speaker 1: the sun is hot above us, as at home the
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  Speaker 1: Christmas day is breaking wan they will drink our healths
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  Speaker 1: at dinner, those who tell us how they love us
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  Speaker 1: and forget us till another year be gone. Oh the
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  Speaker 1: toil that knows no breaking, Oh the hymvee ceaseless aching,
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  Speaker 1: Oh the black dividing sea and alien plane. Youth was cheap,
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  Speaker 1: wherefore we sold it. Gold was good, We hoped to
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  Speaker 1: hold it, and today we know the fullness of our gain.
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  Speaker 1: Gray dusk behind the tamarisks, the parrots fly together as
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  Speaker 1: the sun is sinking slowly over home and his life.
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  Speaker 1: Last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong
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  Speaker 1: tether that drags us back. Howe'er so far we roam hard,
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  Speaker 1: Her service, poor, her payment, She in ancient tattered raiment India.
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  Speaker 1: She the grim stepmother of our kind. If a year
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  Speaker 1: of life be lent her, if her temples shrine we enter,
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  Speaker 1: the door is shut, we may not look. Behind black
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  Speaker 1: night behind the tamarisks. The owls begin their chorus as
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  Speaker 1: the conches from the temple scream and bray. With the
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  Speaker 1: fruitless years behind us and the hopeless years before us.
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  Speaker 1: Let us honor O my brother Christmas Day. Call a truce,
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  Speaker 1: then to our labors. Let us feast with friends and neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: and be merry, as the custom of our caste. For
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  Speaker 1: if faint and force the laughter, and if sadness follow after,
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  Speaker 1: we are richer by one mocking Christmas past