Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful
To me, who loved you so, for one short night,
For one brief space of darkness, though my absence
Did but endure until the dawning light;
Since all your beauty–which was _mine_–you squandered
On _that_ which now lies dead across your door;
See here this knife, made keen and bright to kill you.
You shall not see the sun rise any more.
Lie still! Lie still! In all the empty village
Who is there left to hear or heed your cry?
All are gone to labour in the valley,
Who will return before your time to die?
No use to struggle; when I found you sleeping,
I took your hands and bound them to your side,
And both these slender feet, too apt at straying,
Down to the cot on which you lie are tied.
Lie still, Beloved; that dead thing lying yonder,
I hated and I killed, but love is sweet,
And you are more than sweet to me, who love you,
Who decked my eyes with dust from off your feet.
Give me your lips; Ah, lovely and disloyal
Give me yourself again; before you go
Down through the darkness of the Great, Blind Portal,
All of life’s best and basest you must know.
Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile
I held you gently, as one holds a flower:
But now, God knows, what use to still be tender
To one whose life is done within an hour?
I hurt? What then? Death will not hurt you, dearest,
As you hurt me, for just a single night,
You call me cruel, who laid my life in ruins
To gain one little moment of delight.
Look up, look out, across the open doorway
The sunlight streams. The distant hills are blue.
Look at the pale, pink peach trees in our garden,
Sweet fruit will come of them;–but not for you.
The fair, far snow, upon those jagged mountains
That gnaw against the hard blue Afghan sky
Will soon descend, set free by summer sunshine.
You will not see those torrents sweeping by.
The world is not for you. From this day forward,
You must lie still alone; who would not lie
Alone for one night only, though returning
I was, when earliest dawn should break the sky.
There lies my lute, and many strings are broken,
Some one was playing it, and some one tore
The silken tassels round my Hookah woven;
Some one who plays, and smokes, and loves, no more!
Some one who took last night his fill of pleasure,
As I took mine at dawn! The knife went home
Straight through his heart! God only knows my rapture
Bathing my chill hands in the warm red foam.
And so I pain you? This is only loving,
Wait till I kill you! Ah, this soft, curled hair!
Surely the fault was mine, to love and leave you
Even a single night, you are so fair.
Cold steel is very cooling to the fervour
Of over passionate ones, Beloved, like you.
Nay, turn your lips to mine. Not quite unlovely
They are as yet, as yet, though quite untrue.
What will your brother say, to-night returning
With laden camels homewards to the hills,
Finding you dead, and me asleep beside you,
Will he awake me first before he kills?
For I shall sleep. Here on the cot beside you
When you, my Heart’s Delight, are cold in death.
When your young heart and restless lips are silent,
Grown chilly, even beneath my burning breath.
When I have slowly drawn my knife across you,
Taking my pleasure as I see you swoon,
I shall sleep sound, worn out by love’s last fervour,
And then, God grant your kinsmen kill me soon!
A few random poems:
- Огюст Барбье – Сегодня я в пути
- You Are One For Whom Ma Heart Really Cares by Miraj Patel
- Behold, from the land of the farther suns by Stephen Crane
- English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. In Examination. Руперт Брук.
- Sonnet (IX) : Flesh o flesh ! The momentous , the mortal , the doomed by Neelam Sinha
- I Want To Write by Margaret Walker
- Владимир Маяковский – Новые силы в III Интернационале!.. (РОСТА №891)
- The Welsh Marches poem – A. E. Housman
- If The World Was Crazy by Shel Silverstein
- Sir Hugh; Or The Jew’s Daughter poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Felix Randal poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Farewell To Spring poem – Alfred Austin
- Владимир Высоцкий – Упрямо я стремлюсь ко дну
- Requiem for Two by Vinko Kalinić
- Ольга Берггольц – Дорога на фронт
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Дафнис подслушивает сов
- Толстой Алексей Николаевич стихи: Читать стихотворения Алексея Толстого – Список произведений, стихов поэта на Poetry Monster
- The Hecatomb to his Mistress by John Cleveland
- To the State of Love. Or the Senses’ Festival. By John Cleveland
- I love you
- A Human Being Needs Strong Tea
- Dog racing
- Dissolve in kisses, I would like to dissolve in your kisses
- Tale of the Pope and of His Workman Balda
- Who of you ever
- Аnything can happen
- Outside the Window, Snow
- You must once
- February 23
- May 19th – the Young Pioneers Day
- Море волнуется, манит к себе
- Море огней украшает причалы, вокзалы
- Кипение
- Каждому сроку – свой путь
- Каждый день и каждый миг судьбу благодарю
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.