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 Seven Sisters by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Sailor’s Mother by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Russian Fugitive by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Reverie of Poor Susan by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Redbreast Chasing The Butterfly by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Prioress’s Tale [from Chaucer] by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Primrose of the Rock by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Power of Armies is a Visible Thing by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Pet-Lamb by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Passing of the Elder Bards by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Old Cumberland Beggar by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Oak Of Guernica Supposed Address To The Same by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Morning Of The Day Appointed For A General Thanksgiving. January 18, 1816 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The King Of Sweden by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Idle Shepherd Boys by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Horn Of Egremont Castle by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Highland Broach by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Happy Warrior by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Green Linnet by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Germans On The Heighs Of Hochheim by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

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