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:
- Pax Britannica poem – Alfred Austin
- A Lovers’ Quarrel by Robert Browning
- Жан де Лафонтен – Старый Кот и Мышонок
- William Gilmore Simms – William Gilmore Simms
- Robert Burns: Green Grow The Rashes: A Fragment
- The Answer by Rudyard Kipling
- Алексей Толстой – Темнота и туман застилают мне путь
- The Silence by Wendell Berry
- Last Wish by Théophile Gautier
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Вьющееся растение
- The Gardener XXVII: Trust Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Hyaenas by Rudyard Kipling
- Hope A-Left Behind by William Barnes
- Sonnet 23 poem – John Milton poems
- Иван Варавва – Мать Кубань
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
- Владимир Маяковский – Нынче бар в России нет… (Главполитпросвет №37)
- Владимир Маяковский – Новый враг
- Владимир Маяковский – Новые силы в III Интернационале!.. (РОСТА №891)
- Владимир Маяковский – Новогодние поздравления (РОСТА №704)
- Владимир Маяковский – Notre-Dame
- Владимир Маяковский – Нормализованная гайка (РОСТА № 171)
- Владимир Маяковский – Номер 17
- Владимир Маяковский – Никчемное самоутешение
- Владимир Маяковский – Ни знахарство, ни благодать бога в болезни не подмога
- Владимир Маяковский – Ни на Европу не надейся, ни на прокукиш, надейся только на свои руки (Главполитпросвет №343)
- Владимир Маяковский – Нетрудно, ландышами дыша
- Владимир Маяковский – Неразбериха
- Владимир Маяковский – Непобедимое оружие
- Владимир Маяковский – Ненавистью древней… (РОСТА № 198)
- Владимир Маяковский – Негритоска Петрова
- Владимир Маяковский – Неделя охраны труда (РОСТА № 317)
- Владимир Маяковский – Неделя фронта (РОСТА)
- Владимир Маяковский – Нечеловеческой силы требовала война… (Главполитпросвет №285)
- Владимир Маяковский – Небылицы в лицах
- Владимир Маяковский – Небесный чердак
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.