A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
The Desert is parched in the burning sun
And the grass is scorched and white.
But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
We are camping here to-night.
I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,
While the cadenced water evenly falls,
And a peacock out of the Jungle calls
To another, on yonder tomb.
Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,
Strange works of a long dead people loom,
Obscene and savage and half effaced
An elephant hunt, a musicians’ feast —
And curious matings of man and beast;
What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?
Whose fingers traced,
In this arid waste,
These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust?
Strange, weird things that no man may say,
Things Humanity hides away; —
Secretly done, —
Catch the light of the living day,
Smile in the sun.
Cruel things that man may not name,
Naked here, without fear or shame,
Laughed in the carven stone.
Deep in the Temple’s innermost Shrine is set,
Where the hats and shadows dwell,
The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest
In its oval shell,
By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed,
Represented their Great Destroying Power.
I cannot forget
That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower,
Love came and destroyed it all in a single hour,
Therefore the dual Mystery suits me well.
Sitting alone,
The tank’s deep water is cool and sweet,
Soothing and fresh to the wayworn feet,
Dreaming, under the Tamarind shade,
One silently thanks the men who made
So green a place in this bitter land
Of sunburnt sand.
The peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo,
Little green, talkative Parrots woo,
And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance,
At alien me, in their furtive glance,
Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see
The stranger under their Tamarind tree.
Daylight dies,
The Camp fires redden like angry eyes,
The Tents show white,
In the glimmering light,
Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies,
And the hum of the Camp sounds like the sea,
Drifting over the sand to me.
Afar, in the Desert some wild voice sings
To a jangling zither with minor strings,
And, under the stars growing keen above,
I think of the thing that I love.
A beautiful thing, alert, serene,
With passionate, dreaming, wistful eyes,
Dark and deep as mysterious skies,
Seen from,
As radiant mornings fade into afternoon.
I held what I loved in my arms for many a night,
Yet ever the morning lightened the sky too soon.
Beyond our tents the sands stretch level and far.
Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees.
A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze
From the ruinous Temple garden where roses are.
I dream of the rose-like perfume that fills your hair,
Of times when my lips were free of your soft closed eyes,
While down in the tank the waters ripple and rise
And the flying foxes silently cleave the air.
The present is subtly welded into the past,
My love of you with the purple Indian dusk,
With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk,
And withering jasmin flowers.
My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last,
While the lonely hours
Follow each other, silently, one by one,
Till the night is almost done.
Then weary, and drunk with dreams, with my garments damp
And heavy with dew, I wander towards the camp.
Tired, with a brain in which fancy and fact are blent,
I stumble across the ropes till I reach my tent
And then to rest. To ensweeten my sleep with lies,
To dream I lie in the light of your long lost eyes,
My lips set free,
To love and linger over your soft loose hair —
To dream I lay your delicate beauty bare
To solace my fevered eyes.
Ah, — if my life might end in a night like this —
Drift into death from dreams of your granted kiss!
A few random poems:
- Some One by Walter de la Mare
- The Flower-School by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Степанов – Утёнок (Буква У)
- Вера Павлова – О чем
- Вероника Тушнова – Я поняла, ты не хотел мне зла
- Олег Григорьев – Я взял бумагу и перо
- Олег Григорьев – Дети кидали друг в друга поленья
- A Certain Kind of Holy Men
- Sonnet XI. On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer poem – John Keats poems
- Inversnaid poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Fairy Tale by Robert Desnos
- On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Voice of Robert Desnos by Robert Desnos
- Global Warning by Mike Yuan
- On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston by Robert Burns
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
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 121. Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 105. To-night ungather’d let us leave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam 82: I Wage Not Any Feud With Death poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam 3: O Sorrow, Cruel Fellowship poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam 16: I envy not in any moods poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam 131: O Living Will That Shalt Endure poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt) poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Idylls of the King: The Marriage of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament (excerpt) poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- How Thought You That This Thing Could Captivate? poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Hendecasyllabics poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Guinevere poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Gareth And Lynette poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Fatima | Best Love Poems
- Enoch Arden poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Duet poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson 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.