



Produced by Olaf Voss and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




SONNETS

BY THE

NAWAB NIZAMAT JUNG BAHADUR


"_Love is not discoverable by the eye, but only by the soul. Its
elements are indeed innate in our mortal constitution, and we
give it the names of Joy and Aphrodite; but in its highest nature no
mortal hath fully comprehended it_."

EMPEDOCLES.


"_Every one choose the object of his affections according to his
character.... The Divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and by these the
wings of the soul are nourished_."

PLATO.




1917




CONTENTS


         FOREWORD, BY R.C. FRASER
         NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THE SONNET IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
         PROLOGUE
      I. REBIRTH
     II. THE CROWN OF LIFE
    III. BEFORE THE THRONE
     IV. WORSHIP
      V. UNITY
     VI. LOVE'S SILENCE
    VII. THE SUBLIME HOPE
   VIII. THE HEART OF LOVE
     IX. "'TWIXT STAR AND STAR"
      X. THE HIGHER KNIGHTHOOD
     XI. IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM
    XII. ETERNAL JOY
   XIII. CONSTANCY
    XIV. CALM AFTER STORM
     XV. THE STAR OF LOVE
    XVI. IMPRISONED MUSIC
   XVII. LOVE'S MESSAGE
  XVIII. ECSTASY
    XIX. THE DREAM
     XX. ETHEREAL BEAUTY
    XXI. A CROWN OF THORNS
   XXII. TWO HEARTS IN ONE
  XXIII. YEARNING
   XXIV. LOVE'S GIFT
         EPILOGUE




FOREWORD

BY RICHARD CHARLES FRASER


The following Sonnet Sequence,--written during rare intervals of leisure
in a busy and strenuous life,--was privately printed in Madras early in
1914, without any intention of publication on the part of the author. He
has, however, now consented to allow it to be given to a wider audience;
and we anticipate in many directions a welcome for this small but
significant volume by the writer of _India to England_, one of the most
popular and often-quoted lyrics evoked by the Great War.

The Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur, was born in the State of Hyderabad, but
educated in England; and there are some--at Cambridge and elsewhere--who
will remember his keenly discriminating interest in British history and
literature, and the comprehensive way he, in a few words, would indicate
his impressions of poets and heroes, long dead, but to him ever-living.

His appreciation was both ardent and just; he could swiftly recognise
the nobler elements in characters which at first glance might seem
startlingly dissimilar; and he could pass without apparent effort from
study of the lives of men of action to the inward contemplations of
abstruse philosophers.

To those who have not met him, it may appear paradoxical to say that his
tastes were at the same moment acutely fastidious and widely
sympathetic; but anyone who has talked with him will recall the blend of
high impersonal ideas with a remarkable personality which seldom failed
to stimulate other minds--even if those others shared few if any of his
intellectual tastes.

A famous British General (still living) was once asked, "What is the
most essential quality for a great leader of men?" And he replied in one
word "SYMPATHY." The General was speaking of leadership in relation to
warfare; and by "Sympathy" he meant swift insight into the minds of
others; and, with this insight, the power to arouse and fan into a flame
the spark of chivalry and true nobility in each. The career of the Nawab
Nizamat Jung has not been set in the world of action,--he is at present
a Judge of the High Court in Hyderabad,--but nevertheless this
definition of sympathy is not irrelevant, for the Nawab's personal
influence has been more subtle and far-reaching than he himself is yet
aware. His love of poetry and history, if on the one hand it has
intensified his realisation of the sorrows and tragedies of earthly
life, on the other hand has equipped him with a power to awake in others
a vivid consciousness of the moral value of literature,--through which
(for the mere asking) we any of us can find our way into a kingdom of
great ideas. This kingdom is also the kingdom of eternal realities--or
so at least it should be; and those who in the early nineties in England
talked with Nizamoudhin (as he then was) could scarcely fail to notice
that he valued the genius of an author, or the exploits of a character
in history, chiefly in proportion to the permanent and vital nature of
the truths this character had laboured to express--whether in words or
action.

But Truth, has many faces; and scarcely any poet (except perhaps
Shakespeare) has come within measurable distance of expressing every
aspect of the human character. The Nawab