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:
- Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Владимир Высоцкий – От скучных шабашей смертельно уставши
- Faith by John Oxenham
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня про первые ряды
- Death of the Legend by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- Олег Бундур – Бесконечность
- Xai Kou
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вы были у Беллы
- Teignmouth: “Some Doggerel,” Sent In A Letter To B. R. Haydon poem – John Keats poems
- In The Stone I Rooted
- Collateral Damage by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Remorse For Intemperate Speech by William Butler Yeats
- Reviving My Feminity poem – Amy Cavanaugh poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet CXVII by William Shakespeare
- A River Flows Underground by Satish Verma
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
- Robert Burns: I Hae Been At Crookieden:
- Robert Burns: Ye Jacobites By Name:
- Robert Burns: Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation:
- Robert Burns: Frae The Friends And Land I Love:
- Robert Burns: Nithsdale’s Welcome Hame:
- Robert Burns: Address To The Shade Of Thomson: On Crowning His Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with a Wreath of Bays.
- Robert Burns: Sweet Afton :
- Robert Burns: My Bonie Bell:
- Robert Burns: Thou Fair Eliza:
- Robert Burns: O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam :
- Robert Burns: My Tocher’s The Jewel:
- Robert Burns: Altho’ He Has Left Me:
- Robert Burns: My Eppie Macnab:
- Robert Burns: Johnie Lad, Cock Up Your Beaver:
- Robert Burns: Damon And Sylvia: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Lovely Polly Stewart:
- Robert Burns: You’re Welcome, Willie Stewart:
- Robert Burns: Epigram At Brownhill Inn:
- Robert Burns: The Gallant Weaver:
- Robert Burns: Verses On The Destruction Of The Woods Near Drumlanrig:
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.