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:
- An Army Corps on the March. by Walt Whitman
- The Vision poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay
- Алексей Жемчужников – За днями ненастными с темными тучами
- They Did Not Expect This by Vernon Scannell
- Scribbles by Suchi Gaur
- Written Before Re-Reading King Lear poem – John Keats poems
- How to Increase Your Faith
- Валерий Брюсов – Лед и уголь
- The Book of Hours of Sister Clotilde poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Next Chance
- The Mystic Isle by Rainbow Reed
- Ольга Седакова – Сказка
- Robert Burns: First Six Verses Of The Ninetieth Psalm Versified, The :
- Pagett, M.P. by Rudyard Kipling
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.