Story By Lalla Ji The Priest

A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)

He loved the Plant with a keen delight,

A passionate fervour, strange to see,

Tended it ardently, day and night,

Yet never a flower lit up the tree.

The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,

And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem

Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen,

To catch at aught that molested them.

But though they nurtured it day and night,

With love and labour, the child and he

Were never granted the longed-for sight

Of a flower crowning the twisted tree.

Until one evening a wayworn Priest

Stopped for the night in the Temple shade

And shared the fare of their simple feast

Under the vines and the jasmin laid.

He, later, wandering round the flowers

Paused awhile by the blossomless tree.

The man said, “May it be fault of ours,

That never its buds my eyes may see?

“Aslip it came from the further East

Many a sunlit summer ago.”

“It grows in our Jungles,” said the Priest,

“Men see it rarely; but this I know,

“The Jungle people worship it; say

They bury a child around its roots–

Bury it living:–the only way

To crimson glory of flowers and fruits.”

He spoke in whispers; his furtive glance

Probing the depths of the garden shade.

The man came closer, with eyes askance,

The child beside them shivered, afraid.

A cold wind drifted about the three,

Jarring the spines with a hungry sound,

The spines that grew on the snakelike tree

And guarded its roots beneath the ground.

. . . . . .

After the fall of the summer rain

The plant was glorious, redly gay,

Blood-red with blossom. Never again

Men saw the child in the Temple play.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• Mother’s Death 1981 by Michael S Wilson by Poetry In English
• Money, for a Decent Human Life without You by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• Migration of the Mind by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• Mid-Autumn Moon by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• Meeting with Te Rauparaha by Michael O’Leary by Poetry In English
• Matrimony by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• March on, Yes! by Miles by Poetry In English
• Make Love and War by Michael O’Leary by Poetry In English
• Ma Wonders by Miraj Patel by Poetry In English
• Lullaby of the Onion by Miguel Hernandez by Poetry In English
• Live With Me On Earth Under the Invisible Daylight Moon by Milton Acorn by Poetry In English
• Life of Paradoxes by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• Languaculture by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• Key and Knife (Two Haiku) by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• (Inner Tube) by Michael Ondaatje by Michael Ondaatje
• In the Forest of Life by Mike Yuan by Poetry In English
• If You Ask Me by Miraj Patel by Poetry In English
• If I Got You by Miraj Patel by Poetry In English
• I Wish This Lovely Time Never Ends by Miraj Patel by Poetry In English
• I sink as I sail magnificently by Michael Nikoletseas by Poetry In English

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works