A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Beloved! your hair was golden
As tender tints of sunrise,
As corn beside the River
In softly varying hues.
I loved you for your slightness,
Your melancholy sweetness,
Your changeful eyes, that promised
What your lips would still refuse.
You came to me, and loved me,
Were mine upon the River,
The azure water saw us
And the blue transparent sky;
The Lotus flowers knew it,
Our happiness together,
While life was only River,
Only love, and you and I.
Love wakened on the River,
To sounds of running water,
With silver Stars for witness
And reflected Stars for light;
Awakened to existence,
With ripples for first music
And sunlight on the River
For earliest sense of sight.
Love grew upon the River
Among the scented flowers,
The open rosy flowers
Of the Lotus buds in bloom–
Love, brilliant as the Morning,
More fervent than the Noon-day,
And tender as the Twilight
In its blue transparent gloom.
Love died upon the River!
Cold snow upon the mountains,
The Lotus leaves turned yellow
And the water very grey.
Our kisses faint and falter,
The clinging hands unfasten,
The golden time is over
And our passion dies away.
Away. To be forgotten,
A ripple on the River,
That flashes in the sunset,
That flashed,–and died away.
Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan
Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover’s nearing boat
Afar, afloat
On the river’s loneliness, where the Stars are the only light;
Hear the sound of the straining wood
Like a broken sob
Of a heart’s distress,
Loving misunderstood.
She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
“How to wait through the moments’ space
Till I see the light of my lover’s face?”
Throb, throb, throb,
The sound dies down the stream
Till it only clings at the senses’ edge
Like a half-remembered dream.
Doubtless, he in the silence lies,
His fair face turned to the tender skies,
Starlight touching his sleeping eyes.
While his boat caught in the thickset sedge
And the waters round it gurgle and sob,
Or floats set free on the river’s tide,
Oars laid aside.
She is awake and knows no rest,
Passion dies and is dispossessed
Of his brief, despotic power.
But the Brain, once kindled, would still be afire
Were the whole world pasture to its desire,
And all of love, in a single hour,–
A single wine cup, filled to the brim,
Given to slake its thirst.
Some there are who are thus-wise cursed
Times that follow fulfilled desire
Are of all their hours the worst.
They find no Respite and reach no Rest,
Though passion fail and desire grow dim,
No assuagement comes from the thing possessed
For possession feeds the fire.
“Oh, for the life of the bright hued things
Whose marriage and death are one,
A floating fusion on golden wings.
Alit with passion and sun!
“But we who re-marry a thousand times,
As the spirit or senses will,
In a thousand ways, in a thousand climes,
We remain unsatisfied still.”
As her lover left her, alone, awake she lies,
With a sleepless brain and weary, half-closed eyes.
She turns her face where the purple silk is spread,
Still sweet with delicate perfume his presence shed.
Her arms remembered his vanished beauty still,
And, reminiscent of clustered curls, her fingers thrill.
While the wonderful, Starlit Night wears slowly on
Till the light of another day, serene and wan,
Pierces the eastern skies.
A few random poems:
- София Парнок – Сегодня с неба день поспешней
- Amabel by Thomas Hardy
- Sport
- Beautiful Lofty Things by William Butler Yeats
- A Rythm Upon Our Trusts by Michael McGovern
- Naighbour Pla Meätes by William Barnes
- Николай Карамзин – Из письма к И. И. Дмитриеву (Что ж может быть любви и счастия быстрее)
- In a Subway Station by Sara Teasdale
- Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? by William Shakespeare
- Кондратий Рылеев – К N. N. (У вас в гостях бывать накладно)
- a_poem.html
- The Starlight Night poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Conscripts by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Travail Of Passion by William Butler Yeats
- Love of the heart by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
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: Epitaph For James Smith:
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On John Dove, Innkeeper:
- Robert Burns: To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough:
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- Robert Burns: Farewell To Ballochmyle:
- Robert Burns: Young Peggy Blooms:
- Robert Burns: Second Epistle to Davie: A Brother Poet
- Robert Burns: Masonic Song:
- Robert Burns: Lines On Meeting With Lord Daer:
- Robert Burns: Address To The Toothache:
- Robert Burns: Farewell Song To The Banks Of Ayr: “I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on my road to Greenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.”-R. B.
- Robert Burns: O Thou Dread Power: Lying at a reverend friend’s house one night, the author left the following verses in the room where he slept:-
- Robert Burns: Epigram On Rough Roads:
- Robert Burns: Fragment Of Song:
- Robert Burns: The Brigs Of Ayr: Inscribed to John Ballantine, Esq., Ayr.
- Robert Burns: Reply To A Trimming Epistle Received From A Tailor:
- Robert Burns: Willie Chalmers: Mr. Chalmers, a gentleman in Ayrshire, a particular friend of mine, asked me to write a poetic epistle to a young lady, his Dulcinea. I had seen her, but was scarcely acquainted with her, and wrote as follows:-
- Robert Burns: Nature’s Law – A Poem: Humbly inscribed to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.
- Robert Burns: The Calf: To the Rev. James Steven, on his text, Malachi, ch. iv. vers. 2. “And ye shall go forth, and grow up, as Calves of the stall.”
- Robert Burns: Thomson’s Edward and Eleanora.:
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
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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.