A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
He loved the Plant with a keen delight,
A passionate fervour, strange to see,
Tended it ardently, day and night,
Yet never a flower lit up the tree.
The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,
And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem
Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen,
To catch at aught that molested them.
But though they nurtured it day and night,
With love and labour, the child and he
Were never granted the longed-for sight
Of a flower crowning the twisted tree.
Until one evening a wayworn Priest
Stopped for the night in the Temple shade
And shared the fare of their simple feast
Under the vines and the jasmin laid.
He, later, wandering round the flowers
Paused awhile by the blossomless tree.
The man said, “May it be fault of ours,
That never its buds my eyes may see?
“Aslip it came from the further East
Many a sunlit summer ago.”
“It grows in our Jungles,” said the Priest,
“Men see it rarely; but this I know,
“The Jungle people worship it; say
They bury a child around its roots–
Bury it living:–the only way
To crimson glory of flowers and fruits.”
He spoke in whispers; his furtive glance
Probing the depths of the garden shade.
The man came closer, with eyes askance,
The child beside them shivered, afraid.
A cold wind drifted about the three,
Jarring the spines with a hungry sound,
The spines that grew on the snakelike tree
And guarded its roots beneath the ground.
. . . . . .
After the fall of the summer rain
The plant was glorious, redly gay,
Blood-red with blossom. Never again
Men saw the child in the Temple play.
A few random poems:
- Нина Воронель – Предчувствие погрома
- Василий Жуковский – Моя богиня
- Зинаида Александрова – Баиньки
- Complimentary Epigram to Mrs. Riddell by Robert Burns
- Twelve Months After by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Маяковский – Наврут полный короб… (Главполитпросвет №68)
- Any Night by Philip Levine
- Ольга Берггольц – Какая тёмная зима
- Song Of The Wandering Jew by William Wordsworth
- On Friendship by Phillis Wheatley
- Жан де Лафонтен – Мужчина средних лет и его две Возлюбленные
- The Woman in the Ordinary by Marge Piercy
- Валерий Брюсов – К большой медведице
- Zunsheen In The Winter by William Barnes
- The Storm by Sara Teasdale
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
- He, who was born poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Halls grew darker poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Gamajun, the Prophetic Bird poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Don’t fear death poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- A Girl Sang a Song poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- A Girl Was Singing In A Church Choir poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Wizard Way poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Twins poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Titanic poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Tent poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Rose and the Cross poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Quest poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Priestess of Panormita poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Pentagram poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Neophyte poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Mantra-Yoga poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Interpreter poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Hermit poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Hawk and the Babe poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- The Garden of Janus poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
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.