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.
A few random poems:
- The Sultans Palace
- The Half-way House poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Sonnet 12 poem – John Milton poems
- OFF-LIMITS by Satish Verma
- Hear the Voice by William Blake
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не могу ни выпить, ни забыться
- The Symptoms of Love by William Cowper
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня про стукача
- At His Grave
- Оливер Голдсмит – Опровержение логики
- Excerpt From The Gertrude Stein Collaborative Series
- Владимир Британишский – У этой матери кормящей
- Гавриил Державин – На Новый год
- Parody on a Haiku by Issa by Monty Gilmer
- Гавриил Державин – На умеренность
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
- Fallen Majesty by William Butler Yeats
- Ephemera by William Butler Yeats
- Ego Dominus Tuus by William Butler Yeats
- Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats
- Down By The Salley Gardens by William Butler Yeats
- Demon And Beast by William Butler Yeats
- Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists by William Butler Yeats
- Death by William Butler Yeats
- Cuchulan’s Fight With The Sea by William Butler Yeats
- Cuchulain Comforted by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane Reproved by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane On The Mountain by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane On The Day Of Judgment by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane On God by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers by William Butler Yeats
- Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman by William Butler Yeats
- Coole Park, 1929 by William Butler Yeats
- Consolation by William Butler Yeats
- Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites by William Butler Yeats
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.