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.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• A Consolation to Cuckholds by William Wycherley poems by William Wycherley
• A Soft Day by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• What Reward? by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• To A Soldier In Hospital by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• To A May Baby by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Tim, An Irish Terrier by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Spires Of Oxford by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Kerry Cow by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Harbour by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Deserter by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Connaught Rangers by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• The Call To Arms In Our Street by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Synge’s Grave by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Screens (In a Hospital) by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Easter Snow by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Chaplain To The Forces by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Casualty by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• And She is Spoke by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• A Dog’s Grave by Winifred Mary Letts by Winifred Mary Letts
• Love Sonnet XXV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems by Zora Bernice May Cross

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works