Deserted Gipsy's Song: Hillside Camp

She is glad to receive your turquoise ring,
    Dear and dark-eyed Lover of mine!
I, to have given you everything:
    Beauty maddens the soul like Wine.

"She is proud to have held aloof her charms,
    Slender, dark-eyed Lover of mine!
But I, of the night you lay in my arms:
    Beauty maddens the sense like Wine!

"She triumphs to think that your heart is won,
    Stately, dark-eyed Lover of mine!
I had not a thought of myself, not one:
    Beauty maddens the brain like Wine!

"She will speak you softly, while skies are blue,
    Dear, deluded Lover of mine!
I would lose both body and soul for you:
    Beauty maddens the brain like Wine!

"While the ways are fair she will love you well,
    Dear, disdainful Lover of mine!
But I would have followed you down to Hell:
    Beauty maddens the soul like Wine!

"Though you lay at her feet the days to be,
    Now no longer Lover of mine!
You can give her naught that you gave not me:
    Beauty maddened my soul like Wine!

"When the years have shown what is false or true:
    Beauty maddens the sight like Wine!
You will understand how I cared for you,
    First and only Lover of mine!"

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Adela Florence Nicolson, better known by her pen name Laurence Hope, was an English poet who gained popularity in the early 20th century for her verse inspired by Indian themes and settings. She was born on April 9, 1865, in Stoke Bishop, England. Nicolson's work is often associated with themes of love, longing, and the exoticism of the East. She tragically ended her own life on October 4, 1904. Despite her short life, her poetry left a lasting impact and continues to be read and appreciated.

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

The First Lover

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

To The Unattainable

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

The Singer

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

The First Wife

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Song of Jasoda

Had I been young I could have claimed to fold thee
For many days against my eager breast;
But, as things are, how can I hope to hold thee
Once thou hast wakened from this fleeting rest?

Clear shone the moonlight, so that thou couldst find me,
Yet not so clear that thou couldst see my face,
Where in the shadow of the palms behind me
I waited for thy steps, for thy embrace.

What reck I now my morning life was lonely?
For widowed feet the ways are always rough.
Though thou hast come to me at sunset only,
Still thou hast come, my Lord, it is enough.

Ah, mine no more the glow of dawning beauty,
The fragrance and the dainty gloss of youth,
Worn by long years of solitude and duty,
I have no bloom to offer thee in truth.

Yet, since these eyes o...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Oh, Unforgotten and Only Lover

Oh, unforgotten and only lover,
Many years have swept us apart,
But none of the long dividing seasons
Slay your memory in my heart.
In the clash and clamour of things unlovely
My thoughts drift back to the times that were,
When I, possessing thy pale perfection,
Kissed the eyes and caressed the hair.

Other passions and loves have drifted
Over this wandering, restless soul,
Rudderless, chartless, floating always
With some new current of chance control.
But thine image is clear in the whirling waters -
Ah, forgive - that I drag it there,
For it is so part of my very being
That where I wander it too must fare.

Ah, I have given thee strange companions,
To thee - so slender and chaste and cool -
But a white star loses no glimmer of beauty

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Written in Cananore

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 n...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

    Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat
    Afar, afloat
On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light;
    Hear the sound of the straining wood
    Like a broken sob
    Of a heart's distress,
    Loving misunderstood.

She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
    And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
    The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
    "How to wait through the moments' space
    Till I see the light of my lover's face?"

    Throb, throb, thro...

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The Garden by the Bridge

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
    The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
    Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together
    Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
    Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
    Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
    Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
    Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
    To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, thei...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Yasmini

At night, when Passion's ebbing tide
    Left bare the Sands of Truth,
Yasmini, resting by my side,
    Spoke softly of her youth.

"And one" she said "was tall and slim,
    Two crimson rose leaves made his mouth,
And I was fain to follow him
    Down to his village in the South.

"He was to build a hut hard by
    The stream where palms were growing,
We were to live, and love, and lie,
    And watch the water flowing.

"Ah, dear, delusive, distant shore,
    By dreams of futile fancy gilt!
The riverside we never saw,
    The palm leaf hut was never built!

"One had a Tope of Mangoe trees,
    Where early morning, noon and late,
The Persian wheels, with patient ease,
    Brought up their liquid, silver freight.

"A...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson