Surface Rights

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

Drifting, drifting down the River,

Tawny current and foam-flecked tide,

Sorrowful songs of lonely boatmen,

Mournful forests on either side.

Thine are the outcrops’ glittering blocks,

The quartz where the rich pyrites gleam,

The golden treasure of unhewn rocks

And the loose gold in the stream.

But,–the dim vast forests along the shore,

That whisper wonderful things o’ nights,–

These are things that I value more,

My beautiful “surface rights.”

Drifting, drifting down the River,–

Stars a-tremble about the sky–

Ah, my lover, my heart is breaking,

Breaking, breaking, I know not why.

Why is Love such a sorrowful thing?

This I never could understand;

Pain and passion are linked together,

Ever I find them hand in hand.

Loose thy hair in its soft profusion,

Let thy lashes caress thy cheek,–

These are the things that express thy spirit,

What is the need to explain or speak?

Drifting, drifting along the River,

Under the light of a wan low moon,

Steady, the paddles; Boatmen, steady,–

Why should we reach the sea so soon?

See where the low spit cuts the water,

What is that misty wavering light?

Only the pale datura flowers

Blossoming through the silent night.

What is the fragrance in thy tresses?

‘T is the scent of the champa’s breath;

The meaning of champa bloom is passion–

And of datura–death!

Sweet are thy ways and thy strange caresses,

That sear as flame, and exult as wine.

But I care only for that wild moment

When my soul arises and reaches thine.

Wistful voices of wild birds calling–

Far, faint lightning towards the West,–

Twinkling lights of a Tyah homestead,–

Ruddy glow on a girl’s bare breast–

Drifting boats on a mournful River,

Shifting thoughts in a dreaming mind,–

We two, seeking the Sea, together,–

When we reach it,–what shall we find?

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Poems in English 

• An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion by Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Иехуда (Ludwig ) Amichai ‏יהודה עמיחי‏ Амихай (Pfeuffer)
• A Precise Woman by Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Иехуда (Ludwig ) Amichai ‏יהודה עמיחי‏ Амихай (Pfeuffer)
• A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Иехуда (Ludwig ) Amichai ‏יהודה עמיחי‏ Амихай (Pfeuffer)
• A Jewish Cemetery In Germany by Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Иехуда (Ludwig ) Amichai ‏יהודה עמיחי‏ Амихай (Pfeuffer)
• A Dog After Love by Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Иехуда (Ludwig ) Amichai ‏יהודה עמיחי‏ Амихай (Pfeuffer)
• Straw sandal half sunk by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Sparrow singing by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Ploughing the land by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Old well by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Not quite dark yet by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• My arm for a pillow by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Listening to the moon by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Lighting one candle by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Yosa Buson – Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Hokku Poems in Four Seasons by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• His Holiness the Abbot by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• He’s on the porch by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Harvest moon by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Evening wind by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村
• Elegy to the Old Man Hokuju by Yosa Buson by Yosa Ёса Buson Бусон 与謝蕪村

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