The Bengali Book of English Verse/Samarsi (Greece Chunder Dutt)
Samarsi.
Samarsi the bold is the pride of his clan,
But he owns not an acre in broad Rajasthan;
Samarsi the bold is the hope of the true,
But his sporran is empty, his henchmen are few,
For the Moors o'er the Jumna in triumph have come,
And Samarsi the bold is an exile from home.
Though the Moslem now feasts in his hall and his bower,
And the crescent flag flutters from temple and tower,
Though the chase and the forest, the pass and the height,
Are watched by the soldiers by day and by night,
Samarsi the bold is as merry as when
His will was the law in his loved native glen.
For the roebuck still bounds by the dark haunted lake,
And the partridge still springs from the deep tangled brake,
And the perch and the salmon in silv'ry shoals gleam,
At morning and noontide in pool and in stream,
And spite of their warders on hill and on plain
Samarsi can harry his father's domain.
Though an outlaw decreed by the chiefs of the foe,
Samarsi has homage from high and from low,
For the copsewood is heavy by Saloombra park,
And the vale of Banmora at noonday is dark,
And he's ready, aye ready, right firmly to stand
By the wood or the pass with his sword in his hand.
In the cave of Pokurna, beneath the green hill,
Where the throstle keeps time to the soft-crooning rill,
Samarsi at nightfall, unknown to the Moor,
Lights his watch-fire in peace, when his labours are o'er,
And revels in freedom till morning again
Gives the signal to mount and ride down to the plain.