A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Ah, Wind, I have always loved thee
Since those far off nights
When I lay beneath the vines
A prey to strange delights,
For among my tresses
Thy soft caresses
Were sweet as a lover’s to me.
Later thou grewest more wanton, or I more shy,
And after the bath I drew my garments close,
Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair
When thou camest fresh with the scent of some ruffled rose.
Ah, Wind, thou hast lain with the Desert,
I know her savour well,
And the spices wherewith she scents her breasts–
She who has known such countless lovers
Yet rarely borne a city among her sands–
Thou comest as one from a night of love,
Thy breath is broken and hard,–
Bringing echoes of lonely things,
Vast and cruel, that the soft and golden sands
Buried beneath thin ripples so long ago.
Ah, Wind, thou hast given me lovely things,
The scent of a thousand flowers,
And the heavy perfume of pollen-laden fields,
Strange snatches of wild song from the heart of the dark Bazaar
That thrilled to my very core,
Till I threw the sheet aside and rose to follow,–
But whither, or what?
Also, Wind, thou broughtest the breath of the sea,
The sound of its myriad waves.
And in nights when I lay on the lonely sands
Stretching mine arms to thee,
Thou gavest me something–faint and vast and sweet,
Something ineffable, wistful, from far away,
Elsewhere–Beyond–
And thou wast kind to me in my times of love,
Cooling my lips
That my lover wore away,
While, wafting the scent from his divided hair,
Thou show’dst the stars between
Far away, and eclipsed by his burning eyes
Even the stars.
And now I almost foresee the place and the hour
When I shall open my dying lips to thee
And receive a last cool kiss.
Afterwards, Wind, since I have always loved thee,–
Whirl my dust to the scented heart of a moghra flower,
_His_ flower, but, ah, thou knowest,–
So often thy kisses have mingled with his and mine.
A few random poems:
- Sonnet # 18 by Luis A. Estable
- A Great Time by William Henry Davies
- Robert Burns: Epistle To John Rankine: Enclosing Some Poems
- Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
- Константин Ваншенкин – Ехал я в штабном автомобиле
- Primrose by Patrick Kavanagh
- Enigma by Thomas Moore
- Edmonton, thy cemetery by Stevie Smith
- Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank
- Blind by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ольга Берггольц – Анна Ахматова в 1941 году в Ленинграде
- Владимир Гиппиус – Писать стихи
- To a Western Boy. by Walt Whitman
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- Шекспир – Но не боюсь и смерть – Сонет 80
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старость
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старая актриса
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сон
- Николай Заболоцкий – Смерть врача
- Николай Заболоцкий – Слепой
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сказка о кривом человечке
- Николай Заболоцкий – Шакалы
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сентябрь
- Николай Заболоцкий – Счастливый день
- Николай Заболоцкий – Рыбная лавка
- Николай Заболоцкий – Рубрук в Монголии
- Николай Заболоцкий – Разговор с медведем
- Николай Заболоцкий – Птичий двор
- Николай Заболоцкий – Противостояние Марса
- Николай Заболоцкий – Прощание
- Николай Заболоцкий – Приглашение на пир
- Николай Заболоцкий – Предостережение
- Николай Заболоцкий – Поход
- Николай Заболоцкий – Последняя любовь
- Николай Заболоцкий – Портрет
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.