Hira Singhs Farewell To Burmah

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,

With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:

A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,

Our lips may close on each other’s lips, but never our souls may meet.

For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,

To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.

And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,

The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.

As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,

Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;

So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free

As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.

So sweet you are, with your tinted cheeks and your small caressive hands,

What if I carried you home with me, where our Golden Temple stands?

Yet, this were folly indeed; to bind, in fetters of permanence,

A passing dream whose enchantment charms because of its trancience.

Life is ever a slave to Time; we have but an hour to rest,

Her steam is up and her lighters leave, the vessel that takes me west;

And never again we two shall meet, as we chance to meet to-night,

On the Junk, whose painted eyes gaze forth, in desolate want of sight.

And what is love at its best, but this? Conceived by a passing glance,

Nursed and reared in a transient mood, on a drifting Sea of Chance.

For rudderless craft are all our loves, among the rocks and the shoals,

Well we may know one another’s speech, but never each other’s souls.

Give here your lips and kiss me again, we have but a moment more,

Before we set the sail to the mast, before we loosen the oar.

Good-bye to you, and my thanks to you, for the rest you let me share,

While this night drifted away to the Past, to join the Nights that Were.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• The Old Stone Cross by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Old Age Of Queen Maeve by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Nineteenth Century And After by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The New Faces by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Municipal Gallery Revisited by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Mountain Tomb by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Mother Of God by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Moods by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Mask by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Magi by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Madness Of King Goll by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lover’s Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Living Beauty by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works