The Rice Boat

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.

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Poems in English 

• Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thy self away by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be disposed to set me light by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 87: Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 7: Lo, in the orient when the gracious light by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

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