A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
Too gorged with living food to fly away.
All night the hungry jackals howl together
Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.
I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.
Strange rites here, where the archway’s shade is deeper,
Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.
But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them
Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings;
Poor beasts, and poorer men. Nay, who shall blame them?
Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things.
The world is horrible and I am lonely,
Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom
And find forgetfulness, remembering only
Your face beside me in the scented gloom.
Nay, do not shrink! I am not here for passion,
I crave no love, only a little rest,
Although I would my face lay, lover’s fashion,
Against the tender coolness of your breast.
I am so weary of the Curse of Living
The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears.
Surely, if life were any God’s free giving,
He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears.
Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying,
Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past.
Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing,
But know that death _must_ win the game at last.
As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter,
The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings,–
As the pink Lotus floats on azure water,
Innocent of the mud from whence it springs.
You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow,
The fear and pain set close around your way,
Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow,
Living with joy each hour of glad to-day.
I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet,
How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?)
So calmly careless of the rush and riot
That rages round is seething everywhere.
You do not understand. You think your beauty
Does but inflame my senses to desire,
Till all you hold as loyalty and duty,
Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire.
You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving
As though the whole world’s sorrow eat my heart,
I come to gaze upon your face believing
Its beauty is as ointment to the smart.
Lie still and let me in my desolation
Caress the soft loose hair a moment’s span.
Since Loveliness is Life’s one Consolation,
And love the only Lethe left to man.
Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower,
Beside the river where the fireflies pass,
One little dusky, all consoling hour
Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass
Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender,
Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress,
Against your heart, so innocent and tender,
A little Love and some Forgetfulness.
A few random poems:
- Resolute by Stephenie Tucker
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- A Jewish Family In A Small Valley Opposite St. Goar, Upon The Rhine by William Wordsworth
- The Artist by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Юлия Друнина – Стал холоден мой тёплый старый дом
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Wife Killer by Vernon Scannell
- Late Light by Philip Levine
- Khan Zadas Song On The Hillside
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
- No, Love Is Not Dead by Robert Desnos
- Степан Щипачев – Обращение к времени
- The Rabbit Catcher by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Маяковский – При свободной торговле… (Главполитпросвет №232)
- Николай Языков – Поэт (Радушно рабствует поэту)
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
- Fuck Israel
- Woman And The Weed poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Willie’s Ladye poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Waly, Waly poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Villion’s Ballade Of Good Counsel, To His Friends Of Evil Life poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Valentine In Form Of Ballade poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Three Portraits Of Prince Charles poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Wife Of Usher’s Well poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Twa Sisters poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Queen’s Marie poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Odyssey poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Moon’s Minion poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Loving Ballad Of Lord Bateman poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Laird Of Waristoun poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Heir Of Lynne poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Fairy’s Gift poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Elphin Nourrice poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Dowie Dens Of Yarrow poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Douglas Tragedy poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Burial Of Moliere poem – Andrew Lang 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.