Across the wide stretches of old Hindostan.
The plains now subdued to her power protective,
Saw politic AKBAR and sage SHAH JEHAN.

If AKBAR was pitiful, Islam's great sworder,
Shall she of the Ægis be less so than he?
The marriage of widows he sanctioned, his order
Three centuries since laid the ban on Suttee.

And she, his successor, has rescued already
The widow from fire, and the child from the flood;
For mercy's her impulse, her policy steady
Opposes the creed-thralls whose chrism is blood.

And now the appeal of the Child-Widow reaches
The ears ever open to misery's plaint.
She _thinks_--for the sway of long centuries teaches
That zeal should not hasten, and patience not faint.

The child kneeling there at her skirts is the creature
Of tyrannous ages of creed and of caste;
She bears, helpless prey of the priest, on each feature.
The pitiful brand of a pitiless past.

Long-wrought, closely knit, subtly swaying, deep-rooted,
The system whose shadow is over the child;
By grey superstition debased and imbruted,
By craft's callous cruelty deeply defiled.

But long-swaying custom hath far-reaching issues,