A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Drifting, drifting down the River,
Tawny current and foam-flecked tide,
Sorrowful songs of lonely boatmen,
Mournful forests on either side.
Thine are the outcrops’ glittering blocks,
The quartz where the rich pyrites gleam,
The golden treasure of unhewn rocks
And the loose gold in the stream.
But,–the dim vast forests along the shore,
That whisper wonderful things o’ nights,–
These are things that I value more,
My beautiful “surface rights.”
Drifting, drifting down the River,–
Stars a-tremble about the sky–
Ah, my lover, my heart is breaking,
Breaking, breaking, I know not why.
Why is Love such a sorrowful thing?
This I never could understand;
Pain and passion are linked together,
Ever I find them hand in hand.
Loose thy hair in its soft profusion,
Let thy lashes caress thy cheek,–
These are the things that express thy spirit,
What is the need to explain or speak?
Drifting, drifting along the River,
Under the light of a wan low moon,
Steady, the paddles; Boatmen, steady,–
Why should we reach the sea so soon?
See where the low spit cuts the water,
What is that misty wavering light?
Only the pale datura flowers
Blossoming through the silent night.
What is the fragrance in thy tresses?
‘T is the scent of the champa’s breath;
The meaning of champa bloom is passion–
And of datura–death!
Sweet are thy ways and thy strange caresses,
That sear as flame, and exult as wine.
But I care only for that wild moment
When my soul arises and reaches thine.
Wistful voices of wild birds calling–
Far, faint lightning towards the West,–
Twinkling lights of a Tyah homestead,–
Ruddy glow on a girl’s bare breast–
Drifting boats on a mournful River,
Shifting thoughts in a dreaming mind,–
We two, seeking the Sea, together,–
When we reach it,–what shall we find?
A few random poems:
- Олег Бундур – Весна
- As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden
- To Virgil, Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the N poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- [Greek Title] by Thomas Hardy
- Today by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Booker Washington Trilogy by Vachel Lindsay
- Remorse For Intemperate Speech by William Butler Yeats
- The Gardener XI: Come As You Are by Rabindranath Tagore
- On The New Forcers Of Conscience Under The Long Parliament poem – John Milton poems
- Николай Заболоцкий – Читайте, деревья, стихи Гезиода
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see by William Shakespeare
- Twilight poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Returned To Say by William Stafford
- To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant
- Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery by William Morris
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
- The Lantern Out Of Doors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Handsome Heart poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Half-way House poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Habit Of Perfection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Child Is Father To The Man poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Candle Indoors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Caged Skylark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Bugler’s First Communion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Alchemist in the City poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Summa poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Strike, Churl poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Winefred’s Well poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Ribblesdale 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.