Valgovind's Boat Song

Waters glisten and sunbeams quiver,
    The wind blows fresh and free.
Take my boat to your breast, O River!
    Carry me out to Sea!

This land is laden with fruit and grain,
    With never a place left free for flowers,
A fruitful mother; but I am fain
    For brides in their early bridal hours.

Take my boat to your breast, O River!
    Carry me out to Sea!

The Sea, beloved by a thousand ships,
    Is maiden ever, and fresh and free.
Ah, for the touch of her cool green lips,
    Carry me out to Sea!

Take my boat to your breast, dear River,
    And carry it out to Sea!

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

This Month the Almonds Bloom at Kandahar

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

The Garden by the Bridge

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

The Rice-boat

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

Lines by Taj Mahomed

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Sea Song

Against the planks of the cabin side,
    (So slight a thing between them and me,)
The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed,
    The great green waves of the Indian sea!

Your face was white as the foam is white,
    Your hair was curled as the waves are curled,
I would we had steamed and reached that night
    The sea's last edge, the end of the world.

The wind blew in through the open port,
    So freshly joyous and salt and free,
Your hair it lifted, your lips it sought,
    And then swept back to the open sea.

The engines throbbed with their constant beat;
    Your heart was nearer, and all I heard;
Your lips were salt, but I found them sweet,
    While, acquiescent, you spoke no word.

So straight you lay in your narrow bert...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Surface Rights

Drifting, drifting down the River,
Tawny current and foam-flecked tide,
Sorrowful songs of lonely boatmen,
Mournful forests on either side.

Thine are the outcrops' glittering blocks,
The quartz where the rich pyrites gleam,
The golden treasure of unhewn rocks
And the loose gold in the stream.

But, - the dim vast forests along the shore,
That whisper wonderful things o' nights, -
These are things that I value more,
My beautiful "surface rights."

Drifting, drifting down the River, -
Stars a-tremble about the sky -
Ah, my lover, my heart is breaking,
Breaking, breaking, I know not why.

Why is Love such a sorrowful thing?
This I never could understand;
Pain and passion are linked together,
Ever I find them hand in hand.
...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

I Arise and go Down to the River

I arise and go down to the River, and currents that come from the sea,
Still fresh with the salt of the ocean, are lovely and precious to me,
The waters are silver and silent, except where the kingfisher dips,
Or the ripples wash off from my shoulder the reddening stain of thy lips.

Two things make my joy at this moment: thy gold-coloured beauty by night,
And the delicate charm of the River, all pale in the day-breaking light,
So cool are the waters' caresses. Ah, which is the lovelier, - this?
Or the fire that it kindles at midnight, beneath the soft glow of thy kiss?

Ah, Love has a mighty dominion, he forges with passionate breath
The links which stretch out to the Future, with forces of life and of death,
But great is the charm of the River, so soft is the sigh of the reeds,...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Boat-Song.

Pull away merrily--over the waters!
    Bend to your oars for the wood-tangled shore;
We're off and afloat with earth's loveliest daughters,
    Worth all the argosies wave ever bore.
Pull away gallantly--pull away valiantly--
    Pull with a swoop, boys; and pull for the shore:
            Merrily, merrily, bend to the oar!

Pull away cheerily!--land is before us--
    Green groves are flinging their balm to the spray;
The sky, like the spirit of love, bending o'er us,
    Lights her bright torches to show us the way.
Pull away charily--pull away warily--
    Pull with a nerve, boys; together give way:
            Merrily, merrily, pull to the lay!

Pull away heartily--light winds are blowing,
    Crisping the ripples that dance at our side;
The moo...

George Pope Morris

Water-Party On Beaulieu River, In The New Forest

    I thought 'twas a toy of the fancy, a dream
    That leads with illusion the senses astray,
    And I sighed with delight as we stole down the stream,
    While the sun, as he smiled on our sail, seemed to say,
    Rejoice in my light, ere it fade fast away!

    We left the loud rocking of ocean behind,
    And stealing along the clear current serene,
    The Phædria^[1] spread her white sails to the wind,
    And they who divided had many a day been,
    Gazed with added delight on the charms of the scene.

    Each bosom one spirit of peace seemed to feel;
    We heard not the tossing, the stir, and the roar
    Of the ocean without; we heard only the keel,
    The keel that went whispering along the green shore,
    And the stroke, as it dipp...

William Lisle Bowles

Song

As the inhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, along the whole
    Wide shining strand, and floods the caves,
    Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul.

But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places
    Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,
    --The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.

You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
    Rivers your coming floods and fills,
    The little pools 'mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.

What, I have secrets from you?    Yes.
But, visiting Sea, your love doth press
    And reach in further than you know,
    And fills all these; and when you go,
There...

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell