Poetry
Iron Ore:' The .Old Santa! Spe.:ik
THEV PE brOken. the hill the 'Saiitals. loved,
They scarred it, 'ripped it, shattered it, kro:)oved Stark quarries out of its wooded side Where the frightened -deer could run and hide. They've dammed the strewn *here the cheetul drank, And levelled the grass-edged sandy bank - -
The pea-fowl sought as the dawn broke through The morning mists and the night-laid .dew. • -•-'• • They've rooted the sal trees- out and 'made Great sun-scorched sores where before the Shade- ••
Lay deep in the leaf-dark:tingle • r And there was stillness : the, evening hree;e Sang tO. the twilight in the. ireei, - • - Only the sloth-bear's grunt. was. heard. Or, the distant call of some mating bird ; Silence, 'where grimly the 'panther crept When high in the trees the parrots slept.
But they've taken that too ;-the -engines shriek
Where the lordly sambhur used to speak, And loaded waggOns creak and groan To the crash and crash of falling stone Where only the bamboo's sigh was known.
They, say from the ground the.panther-• trod That the white men made a long steel rod, And mighty, beams:from the rocks where stood. .
King Hathit, alone in his solitude. • •-
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