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.

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Poems in English 

• William Gilmore Simms – William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Ode–Shell The Old City! Shell! by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Morris Island by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Hast Thou A Song For A Flower by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Flight To Nature by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Blessings On Children by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Hymn To Woden by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Hope, An Allegorical Sketch by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Epitaph On H. Walmsley, Esq., by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Elegy Written At Hotwells, Bristol by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Distant View Of England From The Sea by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Death Of Captain Cooke, by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Battle Of Corruna by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Avenue In Savernake Forest by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• At Tynemouth Priory by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• At Oxford by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• At Malvern by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• At Dover by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Approach Of Summer by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles
• Abba Thule’s Lament For His Son Prince Le Boo by William Lisle Bowles by William Lisle Bowles

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