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:
- Pity For Poor Africans by William Cowper
- Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Луговской – Повелитель бумаги
- Алексей Плещеев – Тобой лишь ясны дни мои
- O Why Do You Walk poem – A. E. Housman
- Ode to the Bat , a Sonnet
- Robert Burns: Paraphrase Of The First Psalm:
- That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- CAESAR’S LAST BREATH by MICHAEL SALCMAN
- Others, I Am Not the First poem – A. E. Housman
- Robert Burns: Duncan Davison :
- Bare Tongue by Satish Verma
- was_then.html
- The Young British Soldier by Rudyard Kipling
- Among Children by Philip Levine
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
- Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 131: Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 129: Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame by William Shakespeare
- The Eolian Harp by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 24: Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse by William Shakespeare
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.