Poems ballads and other verses Author:Rudyard Kipling Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LAST SUTTEE Not many years ago a King died in one of the. Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against suttee, would have bro... more »ken out of the palace had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King's favorite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to hill her. This he did, not knowing who she was. Udai Chand lay sick to death In his hold by Gungra hill. All night we heard the death-gongs ring For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King, All night beat up from the women's wing A cry that we could not still. All night the barons came and went, The lords of the outer guard: All night the cressets glimmered pale On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail, Mewar headstall and Marwar mail, That clinked in the palace yard. The Last Suttee ig In the Golden room on the palace roof All night he fought for air: And there was sobbing behind the screen, Rustle and whisper of women unseen, And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen On the death she might not share. He passed at dawn—the death-fire leaped From ridge to river-head, From the Malwa plains to the Abu scaurs: And wail upon wail went up to the stars Behind the grim zenana-bars, When they knew that the King was dead. The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth And robe him for the pyre. The Boondi Queen beneath us cried: " See, now, that we die as our mothers died "In the bridal-bed by our master's side! "Out, women!—to the fire!" We drove the great gates home apace: White hands were on the sill: But ere the rush of the unseen feet Had reached the turn to the open street, The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat — We held the dove-cot still. 20 The...« less