Prayer

You are all that is lovely and light,
    Aziza whom I adore,
And, waking, after the night,
    I am weary with dreams of you.
Every nerve in my heart is tense and sore
    As I rise to another morning apart from you.

I dream of your luminous eyes,
    Aziza whom I adore!
Of the ruffled silk of your hair,
I dream, and the dreams are lies.
But I love them, knowing no more
    Will ever be mine of you
Aziza, my life's despair.

I would burn for a thousand days,
Aziza whom I adore,
Be tortured, slain, in unheard of ways
    If you pitied the pain I bore.
You pity!    Your bright eyes, fastened on other things,
Are keener to sting my soul, than scorpion stings!

You are all that is lovely to me,
    All that is light,
One white rose in a Desert of weariness.
    I only live in the night,
The night, with its fair false dreams of you,
    You and your loveliness.

    Give me your love for a day,
    A night, an hour:
    If the wages of sin are Death
    I am willing to pay.
    What is my life but a breath
    Of passion burning away?
    Away for an unplucked flower.
    O Aziza whom I adore,
    Aziza my one delight,
    Only one night, I will die before day,
    And trouble your life no more.

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

Palm Trees by the Sea

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

English

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Memory

How I loved you in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!

The touch of your lips was sweet,
    Aziza whom I adore,
I lay at your slender feet,
    And against their soft palms pressed,
I fitted my face to rest.
As winds blow over the sea
    From Citron gardens ashore,
Came, through your scented hair,
    The breeze of the night to me.

My lips grew arid and dry,
    My nerves were tense,
Though your beauty soothe the eye
    It maddens the sense.
Every curve of that beauty is known to me,
Every tint of that delicate roseleaf skin,
    And these are printed on every atom of me,
Burnt in on every fibre until I die.
    And for this, my sin,
I doubt if ever, though dust I be,
The dust will lose the desire,
The torm...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Farewell

Farewell, Aziz, it was not mine to fold you
    Against my heart for any length of days.
I had no loveliness, alas, to hold you,
    No siren voice, no charm that lovers praise.

Yet, in the midst of grief and desolation,
    Solace I my despairing soul with this:
Once, for my life's eternal consolation,
    You lent my lips your loveliness to kiss.

Ah, that one night!    I think Love's very essence
    Distilled itself from out my joy and pain,
Like tropical trees, whose fervid inflorescence
    Glows, gleams, and dies, never to bloom again.

Often I marvel how I met the morning
    With living eyes after that night with you,
Ah, how I cursed the wan, white light for dawning,
    And mourned the paling stars, as each withdrew!

Yet I, eve...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Zira: In Captivity

Love me a little, Lord, or let me go,
I am so weary walking to and fro
Through all your lonely halls that were so sweet
Did they but echo to your coming feet.

When by the flowered scrolls of lace-like stone
Our women's windows - I am left alone,
Across the yellow Desert, looking forth,
I see the purple hills towards the north.

Behind those jagged Mountains' lilac crest
Once lay the captive bird's small rifled nest.
There was my brother slain, my sister bound;
His blood, her tears, drunk by the thirsty ground.

Then, while the burning village smoked on high,
And desecrated all the peaceful sky,
They took us captive, us, born frank and free,
On fleet, strong camels through the sandy sea.

Yet, when we rested, night-times, on the sand
B...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Afridi Love

Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful
    To me, who loved you so, for one short night,
For one brief space of darkness, though my absence
    Did but endure until the dawning light;

Since all your beauty - which was mine - you squandered
    On that which now lies dead across your door;
See here this knife, made keen and bright to kill you.
    You shall not see the sun rise any more.

Lie still!    Lie still!    In all the empty village
    Who is there left to hear or heed your cry?
All are gone to labour in the valley,
    Who will return before your time to die?

No use to struggle; when I found you sleeping,
    I took your hands and bound them to your side,
And both these slender feet, too apt at straying,
    Down to th...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Adoration

Who does not feel desire unending
    To solace through his daily strife,
With some mysterious Mental Blending,
    The hungry loneliness of life?

Until, by sudden passion shaken,
    As terriers shake a rat at play,
He finds, all blindly, he has taken
    The old, Hereditary way.

Yet, in the moment of communion,
    The very heart of passion's fire,
His spirit spurns the mortal union,
    "Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!"

    *    *    *    *

Oh You, by whom my life is riven,
    And reft away from my control,
Take back the hours of passion given!
    Love me one moment from your soul.

Although I once, in ardent fashion,
    Implored you long to give me this;
(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion)
    Y...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Lost Delight

After the Hazara War

I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
    Where we two lay together in the spring,
And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
    This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

That was another spring, and other flowers,
    Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree,
The land rejoiced in other running water,
    And I rejoiced, because you were with me.

You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded,
    Your red lips like a living, laughing rose,
Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender
    Now lost to me.    Gone whither no man knows.

You lay beside me singing in the sunshine;
    The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck,
Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms,
    On which th...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson