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:
- Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank
- Ripening by Wendell Berry
- The Owl poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- The Last Breath of a Ship by Tri Tran
- Eclogue:–Come And Zee Us In The Zummer by William Barnes
- Robert Burns: Gudewife, Count The Lawin:
- The True Lover poem – A. E. Housman
- Алексей Толстой – Слепой
- Story Of Udaipore Told By Lalla Ji The Priest
- The Family Monkey by Russell Edson
- Кондратий Рылеев – К N. N. (Когда душа изнемогала)
- My Friend, Come In These Rains — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Юнна Мориц – Это да, это нет
- Омар Хайям – Будь хмельным и влюбленным всегда
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
- An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion by Yehuda Amichai
- A Precise Woman by Yehuda Amichai
- A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai
- A Jewish Cemetery In Germany by Yehuda Amichai
- A Dog After Love by Yehuda Amichai
- Straw sandal half sunk by Yosa Buson
- Sparrow singing by Yosa Buson
- Ploughing the land by Yosa Buson
- Old well by Yosa Buson
- Not quite dark yet by Yosa Buson
- My arm for a pillow by Yosa Buson
- Listening to the moon by Yosa Buson
- Lighting one candle by Yosa Buson
- Yosa Buson – Yosa Buson
- Hokku Poems in Four Seasons by Yosa Buson
- His Holiness the Abbot by Yosa Buson
- He’s on the porch by Yosa Buson
- Harvest moon by Yosa Buson
- Evening wind by Yosa Buson
- Elegy to the Old Man Hokuju by Yosa Buson
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.