Kashmiri Song

Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,
    Where are you now?    Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
    Before you agonise them in farewell?

Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,
    Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,
How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins
    Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.

Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float
    On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat,
    Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!

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

Shivratri (the Night of Shiva)

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

Three Songs of Zahir-u-Din

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

Zira: In Captivity

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

I Arise and go Down to the River

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

English

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Two Songs by Sitara, of Kashmir

Beloved! your hair was golden
As tender tints of sunrise,
As corn beside the River
    In softly varying hues.
I loved you for your slightness,
Your melancholy sweetness,
Your changeful eyes, that promised
    What your lips would still refuse.

You came to me, and loved me,
Were mine upon the River,
The azure water saw us
    And the blue transparent sky;
The Lotus flowers knew it,
Our happiness together,
While life was only River,
    Only love, and you and I.

Love wakened on the River,
To sounds of running water,
With silver Stars for witness
    And reflected Stars for light;
Awakened to existence,
With ripples for first music
And sunlight on the River
    For earliest sense of sight.

Love grew upon ...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Kotri, by the River

At Kotri, by the river, when the evening's sun is low,
The waving palm trees quiver, the golden waters glow,
The shining ripples shiver, descending to the sea;
At Kotri, by the river, she used to wait for me.

So young, she was, and slender, so pale with wistful eyes
As luminous and tender as Kotri's twilight skies.
Her face broke into flowers, red flowers at the mouth,
Her voice, - she sang for hours like bulbuls in the south.

We sat beside the water through burning summer days,
And many things I taught her of Life and all its ways
Of Love, man's loveliest duty, of Passion's reckless pain,
Of Youth, whose transient beauty comes once, but not again.

She lay and laughed and listened beside the water's edge.
The glancing rirer glistened and glinted through the...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Kashmiri Song by Juma

You never loved me, and yet to save me,
One unforgetable night you gave me
Such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights
Receive from clouds, in northern, Auroral nights.
Such keen communion as the frozen mere
Has with immaculate moonlight, cold and clear.
And all desire,
Like failing fire,
Died slowly, faded surely, and sank to rest
Against the delicate chillness of your breast.

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.

For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,
To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.
And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,
The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.

As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,
Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;
So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free
As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.<...

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...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson