Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

“ Safe in death
⁠I shall escape from thee, Oh, pitiless one!"
"Nay, for thy slender frame would keep its warmth
⁠Quite long enough for me to slake this thirst,
This dear and desperate need I have of thee;
⁠Ah, the desire thou couldst have curbed at first,
"In thy resisting arms has grown so great
⁠I needs must have thy beauty for my own.
Though Destiny decrees that I repel
⁠The only lovely thing my life has known!
"I have lived hardly all my days, God knows;
⁠Little of women's love has come my way;
Strive not with me, thou dost but make me cruel ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those Unknown Gods, who move behind a veil
⁠No mortal sense may ever hope to lift;
We only know they falter not nor fail,
⁠And they have granted us one lovely gift.
This Gift of Love, which we condemn, despise
⁠Bending it to the baseness of our will.
Yet in the lowest depths that passion lies
⁠It surely keeps some heaven-born fragrance still.
Therefore, O, you, who find the Perfect Way,
⁠Scorn not the lesser, lighter loves you see,
Unworthy though they seem, yet who shall say
⁠Fate works not through them, for the Days to Be? ”

“ Ah, what hast thou done with the Lover I loved,
⁠Who found me wanting, and thee so fair?
⁠Ahi, Yasmini, He found her fair!
Nay, nay, the greatest of all was thine;
⁠The love of the One whom I craved for so,
But much I doubt if thou couldst divine
⁠The Grace and Glory of Love, or know
The worth of the One whom thine arms embraced.
⁠I may misjudge thee, but who can tell?
So hard it is, for the one displaced,
⁠To weigh the worth of a rival's spell. ”

“ If the one beloved be unwilling, can only fail.
Yet I know the value of what I have given—of Love.
The silver and gold of the Earth are no bribes for Him,
Nor will He stoop to a lure.
Kings have knelt, imploring, and only heard
On the lips they loved and longed for, reiterate "Nay,"
And the eyes of Beauty itself, perfect and pure
Have wasted useless tears; grown faded and dim,
And Love the Careless has not cast them a thought.
Still, if you wish to throw love away, throw it away! ”

“ Beauty, the Gift of Gifts, I give to thee.
⁠Pleasure and love shall spring around thy feet
As through the lake the lotuses arise
⁠Pinkly transparent and divinely sweet.
I give thee eyes aglow like morning stars,
⁠Delicate brows, a mist of sable tresses,
That all the journey of thy life may be
⁠Lit up by love and softened by caresses.
For those who once were proud and softly bred
⁠Shall, kneeling, wait thee as thou passest by,
They who were pure shall stretch forth eager hands
⁠Crying, "Thy pity, Lord, before we die!" ”

“ And through my kisses cursed their sweet consent?
Turning my face towards the desert stars
To pray the chillness of the midnight breeze
Might cool the passion that demanded mine.
And all the Gold, wrenched from the stubborn rock,
The utmost Glory, gathered on the Field,
When have they proved a lure to Happiness?
Happiness is so reticent and shy,
So transient, so illusive, and so young,
Most men but glimpse her through the morning flowers,
Or the faint mirage of a passing dream. ”

“ When thou earnest fresh with the scent of some ruffled rose.
Ah, Wind, thou hast lain with the Desert,
⁠I know her savour well,
⁠And the spices wherewith she scents her breasts—
She who has known such countless lovers
Yet rarely borne a city among her sands—
⁠Thou comest as one from a night of love,
⁠Thy breath is broken and hard,—
⁠Bringing echoes of lonely things,
⁠Vast and cruel, that the soft and golden sands
⁠Buried beneath thin ripples so long ago. ”

“ And Youth's sweet ferment rose from his heart to his brain
Until, when the west was red, and the evening breeze
Broke fresh on his lips, he went to the Peepul trees.
Song of the Churel
"Ah, come to me, I want you so!
⁠Why will you make me wait?
The golden sunsets burn and glow,
The twilight moments come and go,
I watch you wander to and fro,
⁠Why do you hesitate?
"So very brief Youth's season is,
⁠Ah, wherefore waste a single night?
Put up your lips for mine to kiss,
⁠Take the first promise of delight.
"Upon Life's pale and tragic face,
⁠Youth passes like a blush. ”

“ Thou wilt not have time to remember, before a new love-knot is tied,
The stranger who loved thee and left thee, who drifted away on the tide.
Two things I have found that are lovely, though most things are sullen and grey;
One: Peace—but what mortal has found him; and Passion—but when would he stay?
So I shall return to my River, and floating at ease on its breast,
Shall find, what Love never has given—a sense of most infinite rest. ”

“ The Match-maker
Many are loved, but few indeed adored
With the devotion paid to thee, O Lord.
She bids me steal the tassel of thy sword,
⁠Thinking of love.
That she may fasten it above her bed,
Thus will some subtle sense of thee be shed,
When the wind blows across its gold and red.
⁠Fancy of love!
Further, she bade me say these words to thee;
"Downcast and long although my lashes be,
Thine eyes have burnt into the heart of me."
⁠Language of love!
"Mimosa wood, though on the threshold laid
And subject unto passing footsteps made,
Can still send forth fresh shootlets, unafraid." ”

“ Let us escape from out 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. ”

“ Thou knowest, Lord, that my desire
⁠Is to be thine indeed;
Though thou, alas, of love or me
⁠Hast neither note nor need.
Ah, though thou canst not give thyself
⁠My longing to allay,
Yet grant me some small privilege
⁠To take my pain away.
If once thy lips were laid on mine
⁠ (Canst thou not spare me this?)
I could enchant myself in dreams
⁠With memories of thy kiss.
What is a small caress to thee? ”

“ For awhile I shall dance in the torchlight, and then
⁠Comes darkness; and desolate depths of despair.
"Oh, Daughters of Virtue, to you it is given
⁠To lull with caresses new life at the breast;
By us, in our beauty, unshamed though unshriven,
⁠The Youth of the Nation is firstly possessed."
Gulabi (a slave)
"The thing we love has endless charms
⁠To while away our discontent;
Men seldom feel the weight of arms,
⁠Or women that of ornament. ”

“ Faintly sweet, like passionate birds
⁠Whose warbling wakens a sense of pain,—
Thrill through the nerves and make them quiver,—
⁠Heart, my heart, art thou happy again?
Here is beauty to feast thine eyes.
⁠Here is the land of thy long desire.
See how the delicate spirals rise
⁠Azure and faint from the wood-fed fire.
Where the cartmen wearily share their food,
⁠Ere they, by their bullocks, lie down to rest. ”

“ Entreating softly 'Stay with me to-night!'
⁠No safety then for him; unless he flies,
⁠Soon, in the furnace of her love, he dies!"
Lalla Radha
"But if indeed these things are so,
⁠Yet what am I, that she should care,
To watch me as I pass below,
⁠Or notice me and find me fair?"
Priest
"Yours are the happiest gifts that the Gods have given,
⁠Who have never been over ready with gifts to part.
Youth, the divine reminiscence of some lost Heaven,
⁠Beauty, the dream of the eyes, the desire of the heart. ”

“ Hark to the frantic sobbing of the river,
⁠Wild to attain extinction in the sea.
All Nature blindly struggles to dissolve
In other forms and forces, thus to solve
The painful riddle of identity.
Ah, that my soul might lose itself in thee!
Yet, my Beloved One, wherefore seek I union,
⁠Since there is no such thing in all the world,—
Are not our spirits linked in close communion,—
⁠And on my lips thy clinging lips are curled? ”

“ Twilight
Come to me with the earliest star,
⁠Thou shalt not be caressed,
For passion and love shall stand afar
⁠That I may give thee rest.
Tell of thy troubles before we sleep
⁠Of all thy hopes and fears,
And if the telling should make thee weep
⁠Then I will drink thy tears. ”

“ Suffering or sorrow, fortune, feud, or care,—
Whate'er he find or feel,—he may not share.
Lonely we join the world, and we depart
⁠Even as lonely, having lived alone,
The breast that feeds us, the beloved one's heart,
⁠The lips we kiss,—or curse—alike unknown.
Ay, even these lips of thine, so often kissed,
What certitude have I that they exist? ”

“ Stars of the Desert
(Mahomed Akram's Night Watch)
The night is calm, and all the stars are burning,
⁠Around our camp the sands stretch far away,
No sound, except the lonely jackals howling,
⁠Until the horses, startled, wake and neigh.
Only the walls of one thin tent of canvas,
⁠Only a yard of yellow desert sand,
Between us two, and yet I know you distant,
⁠As though you lived in some far Northern land,
Here, at the doorway of my tent, I linger
⁠To watch in yours the shadow and the light,
The hungry soul within me burning, burning,
⁠As the stars burn throughout the Eastern night. ”

“ Whose daughters are passionate, fierce and free.
I could not dwell by a rival's side,
I seek a bridegroom, as thou a bride.
The night she yieldeth her youth to thee,
Death shall take his pleasure in me. ”

“ To those who wander about the world
⁠The standards vary; one is not sure.
One's drifting soul, in Life's ebb and flow,
⁠Would fain be faithful to some things yet,
But youth is calling, the sun is low,
⁠Come to love, come to forget! ”

“ Many shall faint with love of me
⁠And I shall slake their thirst,
But Fate has brought thee hither to-day
⁠That thou shouldst be the first.
Old, so old are the temple-walls,
⁠Love is older than they ”

“ There was no need of any speech of thine
To bid me stay. Am I not thine indeed
For life or death? Oh, I am glad, Mir Khan!
Glad that thou givest me this exquisite gift
Even the gift of death,—death for thy sake. ”

“ Doubtless the night that my soul remembers
⁠Was a sin to thee, and thine only one.
Thou thinkest of it, if thou thinkest ever,
⁠As a crime committed, a deed ill done.
But for me, the broken, the desert-dweller,
⁠Following Life through its underways,—
I know if those midnights thou hadst not granted
⁠I had not lived through these after days. ”

“ The wind comes blowing, light and free:
⁠In all the summer isles
No laughing thing it found to see
⁠As brilliant as your smiles.
You are the very heart of Youth,
⁠The very Soul of Song,
That lovely dream, made living truth,
⁠For which the poets long. ”

“ 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
⁠In all the mud of a miry pool
That holds the grace of its white reflection ”

“ These lovers! Who can understand
⁠Their vivid joy, their wild despair?
He does but live to kiss her hand,
⁠And she would die to touch his hair!
Love is an enemy to Rest,
⁠Which surely is Life's dearest good,
Yet, something stirs within my breast
⁠And murmurs, "Once you understood!" ”

“ Would I resign what the sin has brought me,
⁠Which I hold glory, and thou—thy shame.
I talk of sin in the usual fashion,
⁠But God knows what is a sin to me—
We love more fiercely or love more faintly—
⁠But I doubt if it matters how these things be. ”

“ And lightly smoothed the cereclothes of the dead.
Stole through the women's chambers, close and sweet,
Lifted their clinging silks from face to feet,
Cooled the pale brows that glimmered in the dusk,
Then gained the open faintly tinged with musk.
Entered the prison, soothed the ring-worn wrist,
The deeper wounds of fettered ankles kissed,
Giving the only freedom that was craved;
Freedom from heat. Thus was the City saved. ”

“ In a Feud or two, or a few light loves take part,
But Death will come, and this is my Consolation,
Men live not long with a stricken and wounded heart.
What further challenge from Fate can I hope or fear,
Who mourn the ruined glory of Syed Amir? ”

“ And still the young waste in Love's fitful flame
The force that else had brought them gold and fame."
Princess
"Didst thou not tell me of one who bought thy youth
⁠How that his age hindered his pleasure in thee?
Spite of his gold, gained without pity or ruth
⁠His uncut emeralds and pearls of the sea.
"And what of him who headed the tribes last year
⁠Against the Sultan? When he had lost the game,
Blinded and burnt, and broken with pain and fear,
⁠Cared he then for the passing Mirage of Fame?"
Slave
"Truly, men gain not much for all their strife!" ”

“ Gardens or Rest, or Death if you will,
⁠Are closed for awhile to you.
Safe in your youth, which is my reproach;
⁠I take it to stifle pain,
As men repel the waves that encroach
⁠From stress of the outer Main. ”

“ Thou shouldst be gone."
Mir Khan
Thou shouldst be gone." "Believe me——"
Aziz
Thou shouldst be gone." "Believe me——" "I believe.
Indeed I know. Thine inmost secret thoughts
Are mine, were always mine. Ah, try me not,
Leave me, whilst I can bid thee leave me. Go,
Lest I implore thee, 'Stay and die with me!'"
Mir Khan
"Die? But thou diest not! I had not changed
My state and garments with thee, had a thought
Of death to thee, or even the chance of death,
Glanced on my mind. Nay, then, I stay, Aziz."
Aziz
"There is no risk. ”

“ To-night, as thou desirest, against my breast."
Strange and sweet were the ways where his fancy trod,
A panther's fierceness linked to dreams of a God,
Passion, wild as the Desert, in strength and power,
Lips as soft and fresh as the touch of a flower. ”

“ Their trembling leaves, and show the castle walls
⁠That rest my eyes and draw my anxious heart,
Because they hold its treasure. Ah, Seigneur,
⁠So loved, so longed for, passing strange it seems
That I shall speak to thee, to whom I speak
⁠Daily in thought, and nightly through my dreams.
Thou may'st misunderstand. Excess of love
⁠Takes the pale lips of coldness or of art.
And yet my eyes must surely find some way
⁠To show the white heat burning at my heart!
Seigneur, not so dissimilar am I
⁠From thee and thine. Thou know'st thy father's ways,
Ay, and his father's ”