A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Beauty, the Gift of Gifts, I give to thee.
Pleasure and love shall spring around thy feet
As through the lake the lotuses arise
Pinkly transparent and divinely sweet.
I give thee eyes aglow like morning stars,
Delicate brows, a mist of sable tresses,
That all the journey of thy lie may be
Lit up by love and softened by caresses.
For those who once were proud and softly bred
Shall, kneeling, wait thee as thou passest by,
They who were pure shall stretch forth eager hands
Crying, “Thy pity, Lord, before we die!”
And one shall murmur, “If the sun at dawn
Shall open and caress a happy flower,
What blame to him, although the blossom fade
In the full splendour of his noontide power?”
And one, “If aloes close together grow
It well may chance a plant shall wounded be,
Pierced by the thorntips of another’s leaves,
Thus am I hurt unconsciously by thee.”
For some shall die and many more shall sin,
Suffering for thy sake till seven times seven,
Because of those most perfect lips of thine
Which held the power to make or mar their heaven.
And though thou givest back but cruelty,
Their love, persistent, shall not heed nor care,
All those whose ears are fed with blame of thee
Shall say, “It may be so, but he was fair.”
Ay, those who lost the whole of youth for thee,
Made early and for ever, shamed and sad,
Shall sigh, re-living some sweet memory,
“Ah, once it was his will to make me glad.”
Thy nights shall be as bright as summer days,
The sequence of thy sins shall seem as duty,
Since I have given thee, Oh, Gift of Gifts!–
The pale perfection of unrivalled beauty.
A few random poems:
- Sonnet poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Огюст Барбье – Роберт Эммет
- Poems On Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Party Of Lovers poem – John Keats poems
- STEPPING OUT by Satish Verma
- I Want To Write by Margaret Walker
- Нина Гаген-Торн – Тихо пальцы опускаю
- A Magic Moment I Remember poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- Occupy the Wall Street by Sunil Sharma
- Written In Very Early Youth by William Wordsworth
- Io v’amo sol perche (I Love You Simply Because) by Torquato Tasso
- Morte D’Arthur poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Николай Заболоцкий – Кто мне откликнулся в чаще лесной
- The Fearful by Sylvia Plath
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
- Never Sure Which You Are by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Important thing’s in life by Martin Smith
- Nestling by Mark R Slaughter
- Images by Mary Etta Metcalf
- My Words Embrace by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Illusions by Mark R Slaughter
- My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer by Mark Strand
- If Only by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Morning by Mark R Slaughter
- I, or Someone Like Me by Marvin Bell
- Mending Socks by Martin Willitts Jr.
- He Said To by Marvin Bell
- Grumpy Old Man by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Manure by Mark R Slaughter
- Giving Myself Up by Mark Strand
- Mammary Tunes by Mark R Slaughter
- Ghosts by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Lines For Winter by Mark Strand
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Life, wait for me by Martin Zakovski
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.