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:
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Plaidoirie for a “Prince” of Jaffna by T. Wignesan
- Mother
- Foresight by William Wordsworth
- Baile And Aillinn by William Butler Yeats
- Song—Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel by Robert Burns
- Николай Карамзин – Из письма к И. И. Дмитриеву (Что ж может быть любви и счастия быстрее)
- To A Cloud by William Cullen Bryant
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time by William Shakespeare
- Dust by Sara Teasdale
- Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending? poem – A. E. Housman
- At Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- My rat
- Ode to My Guitar by William Wright Harris
- Davideis Sacred Poem Troubles David Excerpt
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
- Федор Сологуб – Лепестками завялыми
- Федор Сологуб – Ландыши, ландыши, бедные цветы
- Федор Сологуб – Ландыш пленительный
- Федор Сологуб – Купол церкви, крест и небо
- Федор Сологуб – Кукушка кукует
- Федор Сологуб – Круг начертан, и Сивилла
- Федор Сологуб – Краем прибережной кручи
- Федор Сологуб – Короткая радость сгорела
- Федор Сологуб – Колёса по рельсам гудели
- Федор Сологуб – Кольцо и венок
- Федор Сологуб – Когда я в бурном море плавал
- Федор Сологуб – Ах, лягушки по дорожке
- Федор Сологуб – Астероид
- Федор Сологуб – Ариадна
- Sergei Esenin – Sergueï Essénine – Stars
- Эмиль Верхарн – Звонарь
- Эмиль Верхарн – Золото
- Эмиль Верхарн – Зимняя пора
- Эмиль Верхарн – Женщина в черном
- Эмиль Верхарн – Здравствуй, подруга
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.