A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
I
Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.
Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.
Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty’s banquet, calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.
My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.
But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,
Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, “It is not well!
Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast not given–I have not known!”
II
Somewhere, Oh, My Beloved One, the house is standing,
Waiting for thee and me; for our first caresses.
It may be a river-boat, or a wave-washed landing,
The shade of a tree in the jungle’s dim recesses,
Some far-off mountain tent, ill-pitched and lonely,
Or the naked vault of the purple heavens only.
But the Place is waiting there; till the Hour shall show it,
And our footsteps, following Fate, find it and know it.
Where we shall worship the greatest of all the Gods in his pomp and power,–
I sometimes think that I shall not care to survive that hour!
A few random poems:
- Владимир Гиппиус – Узел
- 3 Fun Ways to Stimulate Creative Thinking
- The Ice Palace by William Cowper
- Riposte to the Bard: Sonnet 130 remade in my lady’s image by Neil Outar
- Far Within Us #7 by Vasko Popa
- WARMING UP by Satish Verma
- On A Similar Character (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Monody on a Lady, famed for her Caprice by Robert Burns
- Олег Бундур – У кромки моря
- Омар Хайям – Думал я, что верны обещанья твои
- Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all by William Shakespeare
- The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling
- Kalli
- The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit by Vachel Lindsay
- England! The Time Is Come When Thou Should’st Wean by William Wordsworth
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
- Alicante Lullaby by Sylvia Plath
- Aerialist by Sylvia Plath
- Study in Hands by Théophile Gautier
- Smoke by Théophile Gautier
- Last Wish by Théophile Gautier
- Work and Play by Ted Hughes
- Wind by Ted Hughes
- Tractor by Ted Hughes
- Thrushes by Ted Hughes
- Thistles by Ted Hughes
- The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes
- The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes
- The Owl by Ted Hughes
- The Minotaur by Ted Hughes
- The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
- The Child Is Father To The Man by Ted Hughes
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child by Ted Hughes
- September by Ted Hughes
- Pied Beauty by Ted Hughes
- Old Age Gets Up by Ted Hughes
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.