The Tom Toms

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

Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing,

Like a lonely lover sobbing

For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life’s delight?

Plaintive sounds, restrained, enthralling,

Seeking through the twilight falling

Something lost beyond recalling, in the darkness of the night.

Oh, my little, loved Firoza,

Come and nestle to me closer,

Where the golden-balled Mimosa makes a canopy above,

For the day, so hot and burning,

Dies away, and night, returning,

Sets thy lover’s spirit yearning for thy beauty and thy love.

Soon will come the rosy warning

Of the bright relentless morning,

When, thy soft caresses scorning, I shall leave thee in the shade.

All the day my work must chain me,

And its weary bonds restrain me,

For I may not re-attain thee till the light begins to fade.

But at length the long day endeth,

As the cool of night descendeth

His last strength thy lover spendeth in returning to thy breast,

Where beneath the Babul nightly,

While the planets shimmer whitely,

And the fire-flies glimmer brightly, thou shalt give him love and rest.

Far away, across the distance,

The quick-throbbing drums’ persistence

Shall resound, with soft insistence, in the pauses of delight,

Through the sequence of the hours,

While the starlight and the flowers

Consecrate this love of ours, in the Temple of the Night.

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Poems in English 

• The Redeemer by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Rear-Guard by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Poet as Hero by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The One-Legged Man by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Old Huntsman by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Last Meeting by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Kiss by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Investiture by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Imperfect Lover by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Heritage by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Hawthorn Tree by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Goldsmith by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The General by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Fathers by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Effect by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Dug-Out by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Dream by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Dragon & The Undying by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Death-Bed by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon

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