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:
- Minstrels by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чесменские трофеи
- Hoffer by William Wordsworth
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Чем больше в мире я живу
- Николай Гербель – Песнь лейб-гвардии уланского полка
- Three Portraits Of Prince Charles poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Пируя праздник возвращенья
- A Jog-Trot Pair by Thomas Hardy
- Владимир Маяковский – Рифмованные лозунги
- Владимир Корнилов – В Македонии
- Олег Бундур – Там, где мы родились
- Subjective Genocide by Marie Starr
- First Verse
- The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
- Ballade Of Amoureuse poem – Andrew Lang poems
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 Жемчужников – Почему
- Алексей Жемчужников – Письмо к юноше о ничтожности
- Алексей Жемчужников – Пауза
- Алексей Жемчужников – Памятник Пушкину
- Алексей Жемчужников – Отголосок девятой симфонии Бетховена
- Алексей Жемчужников – Осенью в швейцарской деревне
- Алексей Жемчужников – О, жизнь
- Алексей Хомяков – Русская песня
- Алексей Хомяков – Ritterspruch – Richterspruch
- Алексей Хомяков – Раскаявшейся России
- Алексей Хомяков – Просьба
- Алексей Толстой – Войдем сюда; здесь меж руин
- Алексей Толстой – Вновь растворилась дверь
- Алексей Толстой – Вeсeнние чувства
- Алексей Толстой – Василий Шибанов
- Алексей Толстой – В совести искал я долго обвиненья
- Алексей Толстой – В колокол, мирно дремавший, с налета тяжелая бомба
- Алексей Толстой – В альбом (Стрелок, на той поляне)
- Алексей Толстой – Уж ты нива моя, нивушка
- Алексей Толстой – Уж ласточки, кружась, над крышей щебетали
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.