Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume IX. Tragedy: Humor. 1904. | | | | Humorous Poems: IV. Ingenuities: Oddities | | A Threnody | | George Thomas Lanigan (1845–1886) |
| | “The Ahkoond of Swat is dead.”—London Papers. |
|
WHAT, what, what, | |
| What ’s the news from Swat? | |
| Sad news, | |
| Bad news, | |
| Comes by the cable led | 5 |
| Through the Indian Ocean’s bed, | |
| Through the Persian Gulf, the Red | |
| Sea and the Med- | |
| Iterranean—he ’s dead; | |
| The Ahkoond is dead! | 10 |
| |
| For the Ahkoond I mourn. | |
| Who wouldn’t? | |
| He strove to disregard the message stern, | |
| But he Ahkoodn’t. | |
| Dead, dead, dead; | 15 |
| (Sorrow Swats!) | |
| Swats wha hae wi’ Ahkoond bled, | |
| Swats whom he had often led | |
| Onward to a gory bed, | |
| Or to victory, | 20 |
| As the case might be, | |
| Sorrow Swats! | |
| Tears shed, | |
| Shed tears like water, | |
| Your great Ahkoond is dead! | 25 |
| That Swats the matter! | |
| |
| Mourn, city of Swat! | |
| Your great Ahkoond is not, | |
| But lain ’mid worms to rot. | |
| His mortal part alone, his soul was caught | 30 |
| (Because he was a good Ahkoond) | |
| Up to the bosom of Mahound. | |
| Though earthy walls his frame surround | |
| (Forever hallowed be the ground!) | |
| And sceptics mock the lowly mound | 35 |
| And say “He ’s now of no Ahkoond!” | |
| His soul is in the skies,— | |
| The azure skies that bend above his loved | |
| Metropolis of Swat. | |
| He sees with larger, other eyes, | 40 |
| Athwart all earthly mysteries— | |
| He knows what ’s Swat. | |
| |
| Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond | |
| With a noise of mourning and | |
| of lamentation! | 45 |
| Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond | |
| With the noise of the mourning | |
| of the Swattish nation! | |
| |
| Fallen is at length | |
| Its tower of strength, | 50 |
| Its sun is dimmed ere it had nooned; | |
| Dead lies the great Ahkoond, | |
| The great Ahkoond of Swat | |
| Is not! | | | |
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