Oh, come, Beloved, before my beauty fades,
Pity the sorrow of my loneliness.
I am a Rosebush that the Cypress shades,
No sunbeams find or lighten my distress.
Daily I watch the waning of my bloom.
Ah, piteous fading of a thing so fair!
While Fate, remorseless, weaving at her loom,
Twines furtive silver in my twisted hair.
This noon I watched a tremulous fading rose
Rise on the wind to court a butterfly.
“One speck of pollen, ere my petals close,
Bring me one touch of love before I die!”
But the gay butterfly, who had the power
To grant, refused, flew far across the dell,
And, as he fertilised a younger flower,
The petals of the rose, defrauded, fell.
Such was my fate, thou hast not come to me,
Thine eyes are absent, and thy voice is mute,
Though I am slim, as this Papaya tree,
With breasts out-pointing, even as its fruit.
Beauty was mine, it brought me no caress,
My lips were red, yet there were none to taste,
I saw my youth consume in loneliness,
And all the fervour of my heart run waste.
While I still hoped that Thou would’st come to me,
I and the garden waited for their Lord.
Here He will rest, beneath this Champa tree;
Hence, all ye spike-set grasses from the sward!
In this cool rillet I shall bathe His feet,
Come, rounded pebbles from a smoother shore.
This is the honey that His lips will eat,
Hasten, O bees, enhance the amber store!
Ripen, ye Custard Apples, round and fair,
Practise your songs, O Bulbuls, on the bough,
Surely some sweeter sweetness haunts the air;
Maybe His feet draw near us, even now!
Disperse, ye fireflies, clustered on the palm,
Love heeds no lamp, he welcomes moonless skies:
Soon shall ye find, O stars, serene and calm,
Your sparkling rivals in my lover’s eyes!
Closely I wove my leafy Jasmin bowers,
Hoping to hide my pleasure and my shame,
Where the Lantana’s indecisive flowers
Vary from palest rose to orange flame.
Ay, there were lovely hours, ‘neath fern and palm,
Almost my aching longing I forgot.
White nights of silence, noons of golden calm,
All past, all wasted, since Thou camest not!
Night after night the Champa trees distilled
Their cruel sweetness on the careless air.
Noon after noon I watched the Bulbuls build,
And saw with hungry eyes the Sun-birds pair.
None came, and none will come; no use to wait,–
Youth’s fragrance dies, its tender light dies down.
I will arise, before it grows too late,
And seek the noisy brilliance of the town.
These many waiting years I longed for gold,
Now must I needs console me with alloy.
Before this beauty fades, this pulse grows cold,
I may not love, I will at least enjoy!
Farewell, my Solitude of scented flowers,
Across whose glades the emerald parrots gleam,
Haunt of false hope, and home of wasted hours,
I am awake, at last,–Guard thou the dream!
A few random poems:
- II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton by Robert Frost
- Only in my dreams by Nina Gabriel
- O Singer in Brown by Mary Gilmore
- All Things Will Die poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 by William Wordsworth
- A Work Of Artifice by Marge Piercy
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Одно из двух
- Олег Григорьев – А меня уж везли зарывать
- Acts Of Love
- Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh by Robert Burns
- Three Women by Sylvia Plath
- The Prophet poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Central Park At Dusk by Sara Teasdale
- I Can Feel The Same by Miraj Patel
- Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
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
- Like Truthless Dreams, So Are My Joys Expired by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Life by Sir Walter Raleigh
- His Pilgrimage by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Her Reply by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Farewell to the Court by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Epitaph by Sir Walter Raleigh
- A Literature Lesson. Sir Patrick Spens in the Eighteenth Century Manner by Sir Walter Raleigh
- A Farewell to False Love by Sir Walter Raleigh
- On Catullus by Walter Savage Landor
- Of Clementina by Walter Savage Landor
- Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra by Walter Savage Landor
- Ianthe! You are Call’d to Cross the Sea by Walter Savage Landor
- Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel by Walter Savage Landor
- Ianthe by Walter Savage Landor
- Child of a Day by Walter Savage Landor
- Late Leaves by Walter Savage Landor
- One Lovely Name by Walter Savage Landor
- On An Eclipse Of The Moon by Walter Savage Landor
- Mild is the Parting Year by Walter Savage Landor
- I Entreat You, Alfred Tennyson by Walter Savage Landor
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.