The Bayadere

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays

More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid

By the light veils they burned and blushed amid,

Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways,

And there was invitation in her voice

And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes,

As though above the gates of Paradise

Fair verses bade, Be welcome and rejoice!

O’er rugs where mottled blue and green and red

Blent in the patterns of the Orient loom,

Like a bright butterfly from bloom to bloom,

She floated with delicious arms outspread.

There was no pose she took, no move she made,

But all the feverous, love-envenomed flesh

Wrapped round as in the gladiator’s mesh

And smote as with his triple-forked blade.

I thought that round her sinuous beauty curled

Fierce exhalations of hot human love, —

Around her beauty valuable above

The sunny outspread kingdoms of the world;

Flowing as ever like a dancing fire

Flowed her belled ankles and bejewelled wrists,

Around her beauty swept like sanguine mists

The nimbus of a thousand hearts’ desire.

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Poems in English 

• The Land of the Exile by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Judge by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Journey by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Hero by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gift by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXXVIII: My Love, Once upon a Time by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXXIV: Do Not Go, My Love by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXVIII: Your Questioning Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXIV: Do Not Keep to Yourself by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXII: When She Passed by Me by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XXI: Why Did He Choose by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XX: Day After Day He Comes by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLVIII: Free Me by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLV: To the Guests by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir, Forgive by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLIII: No, My Friends by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gardener XL: An Unbelieving Smile by Rabindranath Tagore by Rabindranath Tagore

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