A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
I slept upon the Rice-boat
That, reef protected, lay
At anchor, where the palm-trees
Infringe upon the bay.
The windless air was heavy
With cinnamon and rose,
The midnight calm seemed waiting,
Too fateful for repose.
One joined me on the Rice-boat
With wild and waving hair,
Whose vivid words and laughter
Awoke the silent air.
Oh, beauty, bare and shining,
Fresh washen in the bay,
One well may love by moonlight
What one would not love by day!
Above among the cordage
The night wind hardly stirred,
The lapping of the ripples
Was all the sound we heard.
Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,
And Peace controlled the sea,
The spirit’s consolation,
The senses’ ecstasy.
Though many things and mighty
Are furthered in the West,
The ancient Peace has vanished
Before To-day’s unrest.
For how among their striving,
Their gold, their lust, their drink,
Shall men find time for dreaming
Or any space to think?
Think not I scorn the Science
That lightens human pain;
Though man’s reliance often
Is placed on it in vain.
Maybe the long endeavour,
The patience and the strife,
May some day solve the riddle,
The Mystery of Life.
Perchance I do not value
Things Western as I ought,
The trains,–that take us, whither?
The ships,–that reach, what port?
To me it seems but chaos
Of greed and haste and rage,
The endless, aimless, motion
Of squirrels in a cage.
Here, where some ruined temple
In solitude decays,
With carven walls still hallowed
With prayers of bygone days,
Here, where the coral outcrops
Make “flowers of the sea,”
The olden Peace yet lingers,
In hushed serenity.
Ah, silent, silver moonlight,
Whose charm impartial falls
On tanks of sacred water
And squalid city walls,
Whose mystic whiteness hallows
The lowest and the least,
To thee men owe the glamour
That draws them to the East.
And as this azure water,
Unflecked hy wave or foam,
Conceals in its tranquillity
The dreaded white shark’s home,
So if love be illusion
I ask the dream to stay,
Content to love by moonlight
What I might not love by day.
A few random poems:
- Under A Portrait Of Jukowsky poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Владимир Высоцкий – Наброски песен к несостоявшемуся спектаклю по сказкам Шергина
- Василий Казин – Не потому ль к любви вселенской
- Beautiful Stranger by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- In Tempore Senectutis poem – Ezra Pound poems
- From The Flats. by Sidney Lanier
- Wind in the Beechwood by Siegfried Sassoon
- Seal Lullaby by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet Ii
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 02 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso
- Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I) poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The First Part: Sonnet 4 – Fair is my yoke, though grievous be my pains, by William Drummond
- Владимир Маяковский – Врангель прет… (РОСТА №363)
- To the City of London by William Dunbar
- Nevertheless by Marianne Moore
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
- Andromeda poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- My prayers must meet a brazen heaven poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- My Own Heart Let Me Have More Have Pity On; Let poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Moonrise poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Moonless darkness stands between poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- May Magnificat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Love Preparing to Fly poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Let me be to Thee as the circling bird poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Inversnaid poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In The Valley Of The Elwy poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Hurrahing In Harvest poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Hope Holds to Christ poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Henry Purcell poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Heaven–Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins 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.