The Teak Forest

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

Whether I loved you who shall say?

Whether I drifted down your way

In the endless River of Chance and Change,

And you woke the strange

Unknown longings that have no names,

But burn us all in their hidden flames,

Who shall say?

Life is a strange and a wayward thing:

We heard the bells of the Temples ring,

The married children, in passing, sing.

The month of marriage, the month of spring,

Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers

That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,

And, under a sky more fiercely blue,

I came to you!

You told me tales of your vivid life

Where death was cruel and danger rife–

Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees,

Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze,

Of southern noontides and eastern nights,

Where love grew frantic with strange delights,

While men were slaying and maidens danced,

Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced.

Then, swift as a swallow heading south,

I kissed your mouth!

One night when the plains were bathed in blood

From sunset light in a crimson flood,

We wandered under the young teak trees

Whose branches whined in the light night breeze;

You led me down to the water’s brink,

“The Spring where the Panthers come to drink

At night; there is always water here

Be the season never so parched and sere.”

Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men?

I fain would have tasted your life-blood then.

The night fell swiftly; this sudden land

Can never lend us a twilight strand

‘Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night,

But takes–as it gives–at once, the light.

We laid us down on the steep hillside,

While far below us wild peacocks cried,

And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass,

The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass.

We listened; knew not whether they went

On love or hunger the more intent.

And under your kisses I hardly knew

Whether I loved or hated you.

But your words were flame and your kisses fire,

And who shall resist a strong desire?

Not I, whose life is a broken boat

On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat.

And, whether I came in love or hate,

That I came to you was written by Fate

In every hue of the blood-red sky,

In every tone of the peacocks’ cry.

While every gust of the Jungle night

Was fanning the flame you had set alight.

For these things have power to stir the blood

And compel us all to their own chance mood.

And to love or not we are no more free

Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.

We are ever and always slaves of these,

Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze,

Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air,

Of the half heard howl from the far off lair.

These chance things master us ever. Compel

To the heights of Heaven, the depths of Hell.

Whether I love you? You do not ask,

Nor waste yourself on the thankless task.

I give your kisses at least return,

What matter whether they freeze or burn.

I feel the strength of your fervent arms,

What matter whether it heals or harms.

You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent.

You ask no question, but rest content

So I am with you to take your kiss,

And perhaps I value you more for this.

For this is Wisdom; to love, to live,

To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give,

To ask no question, to make no prayer,

To kiss the lips and caress the hair,

Speed passion’s ebb as you greet its flow,–

To have,–to hold,–and,–in time,–let go!

And this is our Wisdom: we rest together

On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather,

And watch the skies as they pale and burn,

The golden stars in their orbits turn,

While Love is with us, and Time and Peace,

And life has nothing to give but these.

But, whether you love me, who shall say,

Or whether you, drifting down my way

In the great sad River of Chance and Change,

With your looks so weary and words so strange,

Lit my soul from some hidden flame

To a passionate longing without a name,

Who shall say?

Not I, who am but a broken boat,

Content for a while to drift afloat

In the little noontide of love’s delights

Between two Nights.

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