Alfred Comyn Lyall

Alfred Comyn Lyall Poems

Alfred Comyn Lyall Biography

Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall was born on 4th January 1835, in Surrey, England. He was educated first at the prestigious Eton College and later at Haileybury College. In 1856 he joined the Indian civil service and served in many capacities until his retirement in 1887. He also fought during the Mutiny of 1857-58 and was honoured for this. Subsequently he held a number of high-ranking roles including Commissioner of Nagpur, Commissioner of West Berar, the Governor-General's agent in Rajputana, and (from 1878 to 1881) Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. During this period he helped negotiate peace and a monarchy in Afghanistan. Lyall returned to England in the 1887 and served on the India Council for four years. During his time both in India and England Lyall earned a number of honours. Throughout his life Lyall also worked as a writer. As a biographer his chosen subjects were Warren Hastings and Lord Dufferin. As a historian he was acclaimed for his imaginative as well as philosophical insights into the course of Indian history. He also produced a number of volumes of poetry. These literary achievements brought him advanced degrees, a D.C.L. from Oxford (1889) and an L.L.D. from Cambridge (1891), a fellowship at King's College Cambridge(1893), and membership in the British Academy (1902), among other honours. He married Cora Cloete of Cape Town in 1863 and they had four children. He died of a heart attack on April 10, 1911. Awards He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) in 1887, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1881 and Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (GCIE) in 1896. Literary His Verses Written in India was published in 1889. He wrote a number of other books on poetry. He wrote also books on Indian history, Warren Hastings, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. His literary achievements brought him advanced degrees, a D.C.L. from Oxford (1889) and an LL.D. from Cambridge (1891), an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge (1893), and membership in the British Academy (1902). A more comprehensive list of his known publications is given below: Asiatic Studies, Religious and Social: First Series. (John Murray. London, 1882) The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India. (John Murray. London, 1893) Warren Hastings (English Men of Action Series). (Macmillan & Co. London, 1889) Verses Written in India. (Kegan Paul, Trench. London, 1889) Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social in India, China & Asia: Second Series. (John Murray. London, 1899) Tennyson (English Men of Letters series). (Macmillan & Co. London, 1902) The Life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, 2 vols. (John Murray. London, 1905) Etudes sur les moeurs religieuses et socials de l'Extrême-Orient. (French translation of Asiatic Studies, First & Second Series: Fontemoing, Paris. 1907–1908) Studies in Literature and History. (published posthumously by John Murray. London, 1915))

The Best Poem Of Alfred Comyn Lyall

Meditations Of A Hindu Prince

ALL the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,
Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God?
Westward across the ocean, and Northward across the snow,
Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know?

Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm
Like the wild bees heard in the treetops, or the gusts of a gathering storm;
In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,
Yet we all say, “Whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?”

A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,
As they bow to a mystic symbol, or the figures of ancient kings;
And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry
Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loth to die.

For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills;
Above is the sky, and around us the sound of the shot that kills;
Push’d by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.

The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim,
And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim;
And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest,—
Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest?

The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide?
The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side,
Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath
Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death.

Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the fruit of an ancient name,
Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame;
They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race:
Ever I watch and worship; they sit with a marble face.

And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests,
The revels and rites unholy, the dark unspeakable feasts!
What have they wrung from the Silence? Hath even a whisper come
Of the secret, Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb.

Shall I list to the word of English, who come from the uttermost sea?
“The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?”
It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began, 35
How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man.

I had thought, “Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell,
Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell,
They have fathom’d the depths we float on, or measur’d the unknown main—”
Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain.

Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake?
Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break?
Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone
From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone?

Is there nought in the heaven above, whence the hail and the levin are hurl’d, 45
But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world?
The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep
With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep.

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