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Poetry of British India
Poetry of British India
Poetry of British India
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Would they track our bold march – let them look when on high,
Our watch-fire’s reflections hang red in the sky;
An Iris of hope to the free and the brave,
A meteor of fire to the coward and slave.
1. An earlier version of this poem, six stanzas long, appeared under the title ‘Indian War
Song’ in the Oriental Herald and Colonial Review vol 2, no 5 (May 1824), signed ‘C.J.’
An introductory note presented it as having been ‘discovered in the cummerbund or
sash of a Pindarrie chieftain, who had fallen during a night skirmish between the free-
booters and a detachment of our cavalry in India, during the last campaign’. Successive
encounters between Pindari raiders (irregular mounted forces drawn from across the
Indian subcontinent) and British armies ended in the Pindaries’ defeat by a large army
commanded by Lord Hastings in 1817. This conflict widened into the third Anglo-
Maratha war (1817-1818), which resulted in defeat for the Maratha Confederacy and
the consolidation of British power in central India.
2. The state-drum [HMP]. Naqqaras (kettle-drums) were used by Maratha armies.
3. Infidels, from Arabic ‘kafir’ (OED). Parker’s note to the 1824 version glosses this word
as ‘a term of reproach mutually applied by Christians, Mohammedans, and idolaters, to
the enemies of their respective creeds’.
4. Mars [HMP] – the planet named for the Roman god of war.
5. Baji Rao II (1775-1852) of Poona, Peshwa (first minister) to the Raja of Satara and nom-
inal head of the Maratha Confederacy, was deposed by the British in 1818.
6. Shivaji Bhonsle (1627-1680) laid the foundations of the Maratha Confederacy.
‘Students and scholars will be indebted to [the editors] for facilitating easy access to a
very rich set of primary source materials.’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
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