Story Of Lilavanti

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

They lay the slender body down

With all its wealth of wetted hair,

Only a daughter of the town,

But very young and slight and fair.

The eyes, whose light one cannot see,

Are sombre doubtless, like the tresses,

The mouth’s soft curvings seem to be

A roseate series of caresses.

And where the skin has all but dried

(The air is sultry in the room)

Upon her breast and either side,

It shows a soft and amber bloom.

By women here, who knew her life,

A leper husband, I am told,

Took all this loveliness to wife

When it was barely ten years old.

And when the child in shocked dismay

Fled from the hated husband’s care

He caught and tied her, so they say,

Down to his bedside by her hair.

To some low quarter of the town,

Escaped a second time, she flew;

Her beauty brought her great renown

And many lovers here she knew,

When, as the mystic Eastern night

With purple shadow filled the air,

Behind her window framed in light,

She sat with jasmin in her hair.

At last she loved a youth, who chose

To keep this wild flower for his own,

He in his garden set his rose

Where it might bloom for him alone.

Cholera came; her lover died,

Want drove her to the streets again,

And women found her there, who tried

To turn her beauty into gain.

But she who in those garden ways

Had learnt of Love, would now no more

Be bartered in the market place

For silver, as in days before.

That former life she strove to change;

She sold the silver off her arms,

While all the world grew cold and strange

To broken health and fading charms.

Till, finding lovers, but no friend,

Nor any place to rest or hide,

She grew despairing at the end,

Slipped softly down a well and died.

And yet, how short, when all is said,

This little life of love and tears!

Her age, they say, beside her bed,

To-day is only fifteen years.

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Poems in English 

• Sonnet 48: How careful was I, when I took my way by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 39: O, how thy worth with manners may I sing by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 38: How can my Muse want subject to invent by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 35: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 74: But be contented when that fell arrest by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 72: O, lest the world should task you to recite by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

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