A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Ay, thou has found thy kingdom, Yasin Khan,
Thy fathers’ pomp and power are thine, at last.
No more the rugged roads of Khorasan,
The scanty food and tentage of the past!
Wouldst thou make war? thy followers know no fear.
Where shouldst thou lead them but to victory?
Wouldst thou have love? thy soft-eyed slaves draw near,
Eager to drain thy strength away from thee.
My thoughts drag backwards to forgotten days,
To scenes etched deeply on my heart by pain;
The thirsty marches, ambuscades, and frays,
The hostile hills, the burnt and barren plain.
Hast thou forgotten how one night was spent,
Crouched in a camel’s carcase by the road,
Along which Akbar’s soldiers, scouting, went,
And he himself, all unsuspecting, rode?
Did we not waken one despairing dawn,
Attacked in front, cut off in rear, by snow,
Till, like a tiger leaping on a fawn,
Half of the hill crashed down upon the foe?
Once, as thou mournd’st thy lifeless brother’s fate,
The red tears falling from thy shattered wrist,
A spent Waziri, forceful still, in hate,
Covered they heart, ten paces off,–and missed!
Ahi, men thrust a worn and dinted sword
Into a velvet-scabbarded repose;
The gilded pageants that salute thee Lord
Cover _one_ sorrow-rusted heart, God knows.
Ah, to exchange this wealth of idle days
For one cold reckless night of Khorasan!
To crouch once more before the camp-fire blaze
That lit the lonely eyes of Yasin Khan.
To watch the starlight glitter on the snows,
The plain stretched round us like a waveless sea,
Waiting until thy weary lids should close
To slip my furs and spread them over thee.
How the wind howled about the lonely pass,
While the faint snow-shine of that plateaued space
Lit, where it lay upon the frozen grass,
The mournful, tragic beauty of thy face.
Thou hast enough caressed the scented hair
Of these soft-breasted girls who waste thee so.
Hast thou not sons for every adult year?
Let us arise, O Yasin Khan, and go!
Let us escape from these prison bars
To gain the freedom of an open sky,
Thy soul and mine, alone beneath the stars,
Intriguing danger, as in days gone by.
Nay; there is no returning, Yasin Khan.
The white peaks ward the passes, as of yore,
The wind sweeps o’er the wastes of Khorasan;–
But thou and I go thitherward no more.
Close, ah, too close, the bitter knowledge clings,
We may not follow where my fancies yearn.
The years go hence, and wild and lovely things,
_Their own_, go with them, never to return.
A few random poems:
- Yonder pomp of costly fashion (Song) by Robert Burns
- The Hut
- Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
- of spiritual matters by Raj Arumugam
- Acrostic : Georgiana Augusta Keats poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Никчемное самоутешение
- Омар Хайям – Когда фиалки льют благоуханье
- Robert Burns: Love For Love:
- Villonaud for This Yule poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Омар Хайям – Когда под утренней росой дрожит тюльпан
- To Spirituality by Nithin Purple
- To Virgil, Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the N poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Федор Сологуб – Кольцо и венок
- To Mr. H. Lawes on His Airs poem – John Milton poems
- The Twelve poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
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Poems in English
- Locations and Times. by Walt Whitman
- Lo! Victress on the Peaks. by Walt Whitman
- Lessons. by Walt Whitman
- Laws for Creations. by Walt Whitman
- Last Invocation, The. by Walt Whitman
- Kosmos. by Walt Whitman
- Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Walt Whitman
- Italian Music in Dakota. by Walt Whitman
- Inscription. by Walt Whitman
- Indications, The. by Walt Whitman
- In the New Garden in all the Parts. by Walt Whitman
- In Paths Untrodden. by Walt Whitman
- In Midnight Sleep. by Walt Whitman
- In Cabin’d Ships at Sea. by Walt Whitman
- I will Take an Egg Out of the Robin’s Nest. by Walt Whitman
- I was Looking a Long While. by Walt Whitman
- I Thought I was not Alone. by Walt Whitman
- I Sit and Look Out. by Walt Whitman
- I Sing the Body Electric. by Walt Whitman
- I saw Old General at Bay. by Walt Whitman
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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.