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:
- Николай Гумилев – Она говорила
- Feroke
- Олег Бундур – Обновки
- Meäry’s Smile by William Barnes
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Праздник на биваке
- Sometimes with One I Love. by Walt Whitman
- Fire’s Reflection by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Владимир Набоков – Есть в одиночестве свобода
- Job by Nelly Sachs
- Long-Legged Fly by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Детский театр из собственной квартирки
- To his Majestie by William Alexander
- Владимир Степанов – Телефон (Буква Т)
- Николай Языков – Сомнение
- An Epitaph (From The Greek) by William Cowper
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
- Николай Гумилев – Какое отравное зелье
- Николай Гумилев – Как труп, бессилен небосклон
- Николай Гумилев – Избиение женихов
- Николай Глазков – Размышленья
- Николай Глазков – Раздумья
- Николай Глазков – Рассчитывая на успех
- Николай Глазков – Пятнадцать лет спустя
- Николай Глазков – Пусть будет эта повесть
- Николай Глазков – Про пожары
- Николай Глазков – Про чертей
- Николай Глазков – Последний зимний
- Николай Глазков – Пошел тропой
- Николай Глазков – Покуда карты не раскрыты
- Николай Глазков – Поэзия! Ты не потерпишь фальши
- Николай Глазков – Поэтоград
- Николай Глазков – Подражание
- Николай Глазков – Почему я отказался от самолёта
- Николай Глазков – Эрмитаж
- Николай Глазков – Эпилог
- Николай Глазков – Движутся телеги и калеки
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.