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 Hecatomb to his Mistress by John Cleveland
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Жрец искусства
- Владимир Высоцкий – Водой наполненные горсти
- Владимир Ступкин – Тоска
- Ольга Высотская – Первые заморозки
- Зинаида Александрова – Одуванчик
- To Aziz Song Of Mahomed Akram
- Breadfruit by Philip Larkin
- Vestiges poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore
- Elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo by Robert Burns
- Владимир Маяковский – За истекший декабрь добыча по Подмосковному… (РОСТА №896)
- The Passing Show poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Ghost by Walter de la Mare
- Reverie Of Ormuz The Persian
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
- Ольга Берггольц – Бабье лето (надо любить, жалеть, прощать)
- Ольга Берггольц – Анна Ахматова в 1941 году в Ленинграде
- Ольга Берггольц – А помнишь
- Ольга Берггольц – 27 января 1945 года
- Олег Широв – Она бесценна, просто ангел
- Олег Сердобольский – Зимний кот
- Олег Сердобольский – Задумал слово я такое
- Олег Сердобольский – Храбрый червячок
- Олег Сердобольский – Воробышек и крошки
- Олег Сердобольский – Во дворе
- Олег Сердобольский – Угадай, в какой руке
- Олег Сердобольский – У сосульки льет из носа
- Олег Сердобольский – Стой, кто идет
- Олег Сердобольский – Птенчик
- Олег Сердобольский – Пришли цыплята в первый класс
- Олег Сердобольский – Перемена
- Олег Сердобольский – Облачко
- Олег Сердобольский – Мошка Машка
- Олег Сердобольский – Кузнечик
- Олег Сердобольский – Корова и божья коровка
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.