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:
- Revenge of the Ghost of the Betrayed Husband by Raj Arumugam
- Robert Burns: Remorse: Fragment
- God fashioned the ship of the world carefully. by Stephen Crane
- Иван Козлов – Умирающая Эрменгарда
- In Thoughtless Mind by Satish Verma
- Poetic Justice by Robby Charters
- He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge by William Butler Yeats
- Law, Like Love by W H Auden
- The AntiWorlds poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- The Space Heater by Sharon Olds
- Sonnet Xv
- Little Of Me by Rabindranath Tagore
- Teacher
- When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30) by William Shakespeare
- Manhattan Streets I Saunter’d, Pondering. by Walt Whitman
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
- Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 6: Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 67: Ah, wherefore with infection should he live by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 66: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be, as I am now by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 62: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 59: If there be nothing new, but that which is by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 58: That god forbid, that made me first your slave by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame by William Shakespeare
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.