A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
I slept upon the Rice-boat
That, reef protected, lay
At anchor, where the palm-trees
Infringe upon the bay.
The windless air was heavy
With cinnamon and rose,
The midnight calm seemed waiting,
Too fateful for repose.
One joined me on the Rice-boat
With wild and waving hair,
Whose vivid words and laughter
Awoke the silent air.
Oh, beauty, bare and shining,
Fresh washen in the bay,
One well may love by moonlight
What one would not love by day!
Above among the cordage
The night wind hardly stirred,
The lapping of the ripples
Was all the sound we heard.
Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,
And Peace controlled the sea,
The spirit’s consolation,
The senses’ ecstasy.
Though many things and mighty
Are furthered in the West,
The ancient Peace has vanished
Before To-day’s unrest.
For how among their striving,
Their gold, their lust, their drink,
Shall men find time for dreaming
Or any space to think?
Think not I scorn the Science
That lightens human pain;
Though man’s reliance often
Is placed on it in vain.
Maybe the long endeavour,
The patience and the strife,
May some day solve the riddle,
The Mystery of Life.
Perchance I do not value
Things Western as I ought,
The trains,–that take us, whither?
The ships,–that reach, what port?
To me it seems but chaos
Of greed and haste and rage,
The endless, aimless, motion
Of squirrels in a cage.
Here, where some ruined temple
In solitude decays,
With carven walls still hallowed
With prayers of bygone days,
Here, where the coral outcrops
Make “flowers of the sea,”
The olden Peace yet lingers,
In hushed serenity.
Ah, silent, silver moonlight,
Whose charm impartial falls
On tanks of sacred water
And squalid city walls,
Whose mystic whiteness hallows
The lowest and the least,
To thee men owe the glamour
That draws them to the East.
And as this azure water,
Unflecked hy wave or foam,
Conceals in its tranquillity
The dreaded white shark’s home,
So if love be illusion
I ask the dream to stay,
Content to love by moonlight
What I might not love by day.
A few random poems:
- From The Flats. by Sidney Lanier
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- In Imitation of Cowley : The Garden poem – Alexander Pope
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот что говорил Ленин на съезде политпросветов (Главполитпросвет №385)
- I Swear by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Greater Love by Wilfred Owen
- Ode Composed On A May Morning by William Wordsworth
- Money by William Henry Davies
- Михаил Лермонтов – Я не для ангелов и рая
- Владимир Корнилов – Прямота
- Алексей Жемчужников – Ты прав
- Аля Кудряшева – Меня мотает тянет ведет налево
- The Best Time Of The Day by Raymond Carver
- Winter’s End by Mac McGovern
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
- Sweethearts by Mary Gilmore
- Stars and Jasmine by Maurice Riordan
- St Patrick’s Day by Michael McGovern
- Singapore by Mary Gilmore
- Rile Me Up! by Michael D Wentworth
- Remembrance by Maya Angelou
- Raindrops by Michael Mulcahy
- Purgatory by Maxine Kumin
- Progress by Michael McGovern
- Pejar Creek by Mary Gilmore
- Passing Time by Maya Angelou
- O Singer in Brown by Mary Gilmore
- No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest by Mary Gilmore
- New York’s Bad Dream by Matthew Abuelo
- New York’s Last Gleanings by Matthew Abuelo
- Nationality by Mary Gilmore
- Momma Welfare Roll by Maya Angelou
- Modest Sounds by Michael Brandon Odom
- mine danse macabre doppelganger by matthew scott harris
- Million Man March Poem by Maya Angelou
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.