Oh, Life, I have taken you for my Lover,
I rent your veils and I found you fair ;
If a fault or failing my eyes discover,
I will not see it; it is not there !
I know, if I knew, I should hold you dearer,
Should understand, if I understood,
For I worship more, as you draw me nearer,
Your reckless Evil, your perfect Good.
In the Jungle gloom, we have watched and waited,
For stealthy Panthers, that prowl by night,
At the end of some weary march, belated,
We heard strange tales by the camp-fire light.
We have lain on the starlit sands, untented,
While low-hung planets rose white and fair,
And in moonlit gardens, silver and scented,
Oh, Life, my Lover, how sweet you were !
Forbidden and barbarous rites were shown us,
In rock-hewn Temples and jungle caves,
And the smoke-wreathed home of the dead has known us,
The burning-ghat by the Ganges waves
Ah, the long, lone ride through the starlit hours,
The long, lone watch on the starlit sea,
And the flame and flush of the morning flowers
When Life, my Lover, was kind to me !
Betimes we were out on the Sea, together;
The vessel raced down the great green slope
Of mountainous waves, in desperate weather ;
The hearts of men were adrift from hope.
As over the deck, in exultant fashion,
The violent water crashed and fell,
I knew, through the joy of your reckless passion,
Agonised fear of the last farewell.
But I follow you always, unresisting,
To lowest depth ; to uttermost brink,
From a thirst like mine there is no desisting
Though given poison for wine to drink.
You may do your utmost, you will not shake me,
Your faith may falter ; my faith is true.
Oh, Life, you may shatter and rend and break me,
All Pain is Pleasure, that springs from you !
In the height and heat of your wildest passion,
You had your uttermost will of me,
And when have I asked for the least compassion ?
A lover loved is a lover free !
Though, with never a word of farewell spoken
In lonely wilds of some Desert place,
You have flung me from you, adrift and broken,
To wait the child of your last embrace.
And never my faith nor my fervour faltered,
Until you turned to my lips again,
When, my eager longing for you unaltered
Your first kiss cancelled my months of pain.
Ah, Life, you may torture my soul, betray me,
The right is yours, as Lover and Lord.
And when in the climax of all, you slay me,
My lips in dying will seek your sword.
A few random poems:
- The Perch by Seamus Heaney
- Валерий Брюсов – Фонарики
- Sonnet LXX by William Shakespeare
- Before You Returned by Shahida Latif
- Elegy on Willie Nicol’s Mare by Robert Burns
- For Someone, Somewhere, In Relation by Shaunna Harper
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лев, сраженный Человеком
- Николай Языков – Песня (Я жду тебя, когда вечерней мглою)
- Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st by William Shakespeare
- The Workbox by Thomas Hardy
- Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours. by Walt Whitman
- “Look up, desponding hearts! See, Morning sallies” poem – Alfred Austin
- On An Arctic Winter by Nithin Purple
- To a woman, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: A une femme by T. Wignesan.
- Thoras Song Ashtaroth
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
- Ribblesdale poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Repeat That, Repeat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Pied Beauty poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Penmaen Pool poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Peace poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- My prayers must meet a brazen heaven poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- My Own Heart Let Me Have More Have Pity On; Let poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Moonrise poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Moonless darkness stands between poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- May Magnificat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Love Preparing to Fly poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Let me be to Thee as the circling bird poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Inversnaid poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In The Valley Of The Elwy poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
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.