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:
- On The Tomb Of A Priestess Of Artemis by Sappho
- The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats
- At Bessemer by Philip Levine
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись 1 к статуе Петра Великого
- Олег Бундур – Дедушка воспитывает папу
- Яков Полонский – Неотвязная
- Robert Burns: Sketch In Verse: Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox.
- A Prayer by Sara Teasdale
- The Lads in Their Hundreds poem – A. E. Housman
- Sonnet 118: Like as to make our appetite more keen by William Shakespeare
- Oh fair enough are sky and plain poem – A. E. Housman
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – На улице
- Ольга Берггольц – Простите бедность этих строк
- Baptistry
- Dying
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
- Алексей Плещеев – Твоя любовь мне утешенье
- Алексей Плещеев – Тобой лишь ясны дни мои
- Алексей Плещеев – Сон
- Алексей Плещеев – Смотрю на нее и любуюсь
- Алексей Плещеев – Сердцу
- Алексей Плещеев – Прости
- Алексей Плещеев – По чувствам братья мы с тобой
- Алексей Плещеев – Песня
- Алексей Плещеев – Ответ
- Алексей Плещеев – Она и он
- Алексей Плещеев – Ноктюрн
- Алексей Плещеев – На память
- Алексей Плещеев – Молчание
- Алексей Плещеев – Мною злых и глупых шуток
- Алексей Плещеев – Лучше гибель без возврата
- Алексей Плещеев – Когда твой кроткий, ясный взор
- Алексей Плещеев – Как солнце блещет ярко
- Алексей Плещеев – Есть дни, ни злоба, ни любовь
- Алексей Плещеев – Ее мне жаль
- Алексей Плещеев – Дети века все больные
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.