A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Heart, my heart, thou hast found thy home!
From gloom and sorrow thou hast come forth,
Thou who wast foolish, and sought to roam
‘Neath the cruel stars of the frozen North.
Thou hast returned to thy dear delights;
The golden glow of the quivering days,
The silver silence of tropical nights,
No more to wander in alien ways.
Here, each star is a well-loved friend;
To me and my heart at the journey’s end.
These are my people, and this my land,
I hear the pulse of her secret soul.
This is the life that I understand,
Savage and simple and sane and whole.
Washed in the light of a clear fierce sun,–
Heart, my heart, the journey is done.
See! the painted piece of the skies,
Where the rose-hued opal of sunset lies.
Hear the passionate Koel calling
From coral trees, where the dusk is falling.
See my people, slight limbed and tall.
The maiden’s bosom they scorn to cover:
The breasts that shall call and enthral her lover,
Things of beauty, are free to all.
Free to the eyes, that think no shame
That a girl should bloom like a forest flower.
Who hold that Love is a sacred flame,–
Outward beauty a God-like dower.
Who further regard it as no disgrace
If loveliness lessen to serve the race,
Nor point the finger of jesting scorn
At her who carries the child unborn.
Ah, my heart, but we wandered far
From the light of the slanting fourfold Star!
Oh, palm-leaf thatch, where the melon thrives
Beneath the shade of the tamarind tree,
Thou coverest tranquil, graceful lives,
That want so little, that knew no haste,
Nor the bitter goad of a too-full hour;
Whose soft-eyed women are lithe and tall,
And wear no garment below the knee,
Nor veil or raiment above the waist,
But the beautiful hair, that dowers them all,
And falls to the ground in a scented shower.
The youths return from their swift-flowing bath,
With the swinging grace that their height allows,
Lightly climbing the river-side path,
Their soft hair knotted above their brows.
Elephants wade the darkening river,
Their bells, which tinkle in minor thirds,
Faintly sweet, like passionate birds
Whose warbling wakens a sense of pain,–
Thrill through the nerves and make them quiver,–
Heart, my heart, art thou happy again?
Here is beauty to feast thine eyes.
Here is the land of thy long desire.
See how the delicate spirals rise
Azure and faint from the wood-fed fire.
Where the cartmen wearily share their food,
Ere they, by their bullocks, lie down to rest.
Heart of mine, dost thou find it good
This wide red road by the winds caressed?
This lone Parao, where the fireflies light?
These tom-toms, fretting the peace of night?
Heart, thou hast wandered and suffered much,
Death has robbed thee, and Life betrayed,
But there is ever a solace for such
In that they are not lightly afraid.
The strength that found them the fire to love
Finds them also the force to forget.
Thy joy in thy dreaming lives to prove
Thou art not mortally wounded yet.
Here, ‘neath the arch of the vast, clear sky,
Where range upon range the remote grey hills
Far in the distance recede and die,
There is no space for thy trivial ills.
On the low horizon towards the sea,
Faint yet vivid, the lightnings play,
The lucid air is kind as a kiss,
The falling twilight is cool and grey.
What has sorrow to do with thee ?
Love was cruel? thou now art free.
Life unkind? it has given thee this!
A few random poems:
- Female Author by Sylvia Plath
- Love In Autumn by Sara Teasdale
- Route Marchin’ by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Британишский – Смерть Крылова
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Утренние песни
- Poetic Dilemma by Pawan Kumar
- The Coin by Sara Teasdale
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child by Ted Hughes
- Олег Сердобольский – Воробышек и крошки
- Владимир Британишский – Философы! Не верьте островам
- Михаил Лермонтов – Арфа
- Second Epistle to J. Lapraik by Robert Burns
- Ballade Made In The Hot Weather by William Ernest Henley
- Владимир Высоцкий – Милицейский протокол
- Николай Заболоцкий – Прощание
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
- Soul Receives From Soul by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Some Kiss We Want by Rumi
- Sleep of the Body the Soul’s Awakening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Quatrain 1693 (Farsi with English Translation) by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Passion makes the old medicine new: by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Out of Your Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Only Breath by Jelaluddin Rumi
- One Whisper of the Beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ode 1957: An intellectual by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- O You Who’ve gone on Pilgrimage by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Not Here by Rumi
- Not Intrigued With Evening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love is a Tree by Rumi
- Love is the Water of Life by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love is Reckless by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love Has Nothing to Do with the Five Senses by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Lord, what a Beloved is mine! by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Like This by Rumi
- Let go of your worries by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Late, by Myself by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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.