The Garden By The Bridge

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

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,

The tigers rend alive their quivering prey

In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,

Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together

Over the carrion in the river bed,

Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather

Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance

Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,

Reiterated with a sad insistence

Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway’s shade is deeper,

Are consummated in the river bed;

Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper

To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them

Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings;

Poor beasts, and poorer men. Nay, who shall blame them?

Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things.

The world is horrible and I am lonely,

Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom

And find forgetfulness, remembering only

Your face beside me in the scented gloom.

Nay, do not shrink! I am not here for passion,

I crave no love, only a little rest,

Although I would my face lay, lover’s fashion,

Against the tender coolness of your breast.

I am so weary of the Curse of Living

The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears.

Surely, if life were any God’s free giving,

He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears.

Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying,

Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past.

Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing,

But know that death _must_ win the game at last.

As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter,

The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings,–

As the pink Lotus floats on azure water,

Innocent of the mud from whence it springs.

You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow,

The fear and pain set close around your way,

Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow,

Living with joy each hour of glad to-day.

I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet,

How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?)

So calmly careless of the rush and riot

That rages round is seething everywhere.

You do not understand. You think your beauty

Does but inflame my senses to desire,

Till all you hold as loyalty and duty,

Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire.

You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving

As though the whole world’s sorrow eat my heart,

I come to gaze upon your face believing

Its beauty is as ointment to the smart.

Lie still and let me in my desolation

Caress the soft loose hair a moment’s span.

Since Loveliness is Life’s one Consolation,

And love the only Lethe left to man.

Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower,

Beside the river where the fireflies pass,

One little dusky, all consoling hour

Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass

Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender,

Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress,

Against your heart, so innocent and tender,

A little Love and some Forgetfulness.

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Poems in English 

• The Hedger by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Heäre by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Guide Post by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Girt Wold House O’ Mossy Stwone by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Giants In Treädes by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Flood In Spring by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Farmer’s Woldest D’ter by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Fancy Feäir At Maïden Newton by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Fall by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Evenèn Star O’ Zummer by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Echo by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Dree Woaks by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Drèven O’ The Common by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Do’set Militia by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Common A-Took In by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Clote (Water-Lily) by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Church An’ Happy Zunday by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Child’s Greäve by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Child an’ the Mowers by William Barnes by William Barnes
• The Castle Ruins by William Barnes by William Barnes

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