A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Had I been young I could have claimed to fold thee
For many days against my eager breast;
But, as things are, how can I hope to hold thee
Once thou hast wakened from this fleeting rest?
Clear shone the moonlight, so that thou couldst find me,
Yet not so clear that thou couldst see my face,
Where in the shadow of the palms behind me
I waited for thy steps, for thy embrace.
What reck I now my morning life was lonely?
For widowed feet the ways are always rough.
Though thou hast come to me at sunset only,
Still thou hast come, my Lord, it is enough.
Ah, mine no more the glow of dawning beauty,
The fragrance and the dainty gloss of youth,
Worn by long years of solitude and duty,
I have no bloom to offer thee in truth.
Yet, since these eyes of mine have never wandered,
Still may they gleam with long forgotten light.
Since in no wanton way my youth was squandered,
Some sense of youth still clings to me to-night.
_Thy_ lips are fresh as dew on budding roses,
The gold of dawn still lingers in thy hair,
While the abandonment of sleep discloses
How every attitude of youth is fair.
Thou art so pale, I hardly dare caress thee,
Too brown my fingers show against the white.
Ahi, the glory, that I should possess thee,
Ahi, the grief, but for a single night!
The tulip tree has pallid golden flowers
That grow more rosy as their petals fade;
Such is the splendour of my evening hours
Whose time of youth was wasted in the shade.
I shall not wait to see to-morrow’s morning,
Too bright the golden dawn for me,–too bright,–
How could I bear thine eyes’ unconscious scorning
Of what so pleased thee in the dimmer light?
It may be wine had brought some brief illusion,
Filling thy brain with rainbow fantasy,
Or youth, with moonlight, making sweet collusion,
Threw an alluring glamour over me
Therefore I leave thee softly, to awaken
When the first sun rays warm thy blue-veined breast,
Smiling and all unknowing I have taken
The poppied drink that brings me endless rest.
Thus would I have thee rise; thy fancy laden
With the vague sweetness of the bygone night,
Thinking of me as some consenting maiden,
Whose beauty blossomed first for thy delight.
While I, if any kindly visions hover
Around the silence of my last repose,
Shall dream of thee, my pale and radiant lover,
Who made my life so lovely at its close!
A few random poems:
- Don’t Light The Candles by Yahia Al-Samawy
- Listening To Rwanda Genocide by Satish Verma
- Epistle to Mrs. Scott of Wauchope House by Robert Burns
- Кондратий Рылеев – Мне тошно здесь, как на чужбине
- Elegy III. Anno Aet. 17. On The Death Of The Bishop Of Winchester (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- Николай Заболоцкий – Свадьба
- Иосиф Бродский – Буров тракторист
- Владимир Маяковский – Праздник урожая
- Full of Life, Now. by Walt Whitman
- To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday poem – Alexander Pope
- Serendipity by Seema Gupta
- Last night my soul cried O exalted sphere of Heaven by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Mad Nuclear Mushrooms by Adeola Ikuomola
- Robert Burns: There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame:
- Old Memory by William Butler Yeats
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
- Allegory by Thomas Hood
- A Lake And A Fairy Boat by Thomas Hood
- Your Last Drive by Thomas Hardy
- Without Ceremony by Thomas Hardy
- [Greek Title] by Thomas Hardy
- Afterwards by Thomas Hardy
- A Broken Appointment by Thomas Hardy
- love_is_just_like_the_rain.html
- boy_running_in_the_rain.html
- xai_kou_from_book_seeds_of_faith.html
- xai_kou1.html
- xai_kou0.html
- xai_kou.html
- vorticism_is_a_choka_in_its_modular_home.html
- victor.html
- traveling.html
- tracks_in_the_private_country.html
- the_world.html
- the_holy_tree.html
- the_emigrant.html
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.