Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Name: Stars of the Desert
Author: Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

Stars of the Desert (1903)

Summary

“Stars of the Desert”, published in 1903, is a work by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson. It explores elements such as white City, Love and the Days to Be.

Quotes from Stars of the Desert (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Ah, come to me, since Death has given the right.
I love thee so, I could have died to-night
Without the poison's aid, from sheer delight,
Tristan!
Much may be done by those about to die,
Much may be said by lips that say "Good-bye,"
On which the Last Great Silence soon must lie,
Tristan!
With Death to shelter me, I greatly dare,
My lips seek things mine eyes have long found fair,
This is thy mouth,—and this, thy falling hair,
Tristan!
Thy falling hair,—so soft upon my brow,
Never a lover has been loved as thou!
If this is Death, I have not lived till now! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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 ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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!" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Nightly her limbs, unconscious in her dreaming,
⁠Still took the tender attitudes of love.
For twenty years hope lingered, unabated,
⁠Though beauty lost its bloom and youth its fire,
Never there came the step for which she waited,
⁠Never the lover of her heart's desire. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ A heritage obscure and vast
From Man's unfathomable past.
Each twilight, when the sun burns down
In desert waste, or crowded town,
When shadows fall and night draws near
The dusk brings back the Jungle Fear. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Oh, Life, you may shatter and rend and break me,
⁠All Pain is Pleasure, that springs from you!
In the height and heat of your wildest passion,
⁠You had your uttermost will of me,
And when have I asked for the least compassion?
⁠A lover loved is a lover free! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Had Fate but ordered your soft light to fall
⁠Across my solitudes, O eyes of blue.
In the Far East the old Religions say
⁠Man rises nearest to the Gods above,
For a brief space becoming even as they,
⁠In the last ecstasy of human love. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ But though I wandered away, came forth
⁠From under those clouded skies.
Two laws are fixed, as the stars above,
⁠For every race and clime;
One is the cruel Sweetness of Love
⁠And one the Shortness of Time! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Ah, how blind men are,
⁠How strange their words of careless kindness ring.
It is the sweetest justice or our lives
⁠That once, ere settling to our lifelong task
Of serving boors and raising sons to them
⁠One golden moment, too divine to ask
In our most daring prayers, is flung to us
⁠By our time honoured custom's strange decree,
One perfect hour of radiant romance
⁠Is lent to us; will it be lent to me?
Rarely men understand our way of love ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ And Life and Love, that seldom satisfied me,
⁠Meet me with lovely faces in my dreams.
Life at his brightest, flushed and crowned with flowers,
⁠Brings gifts no mortal, waking, e'er possessed,
Exquisite Chances, and Enchanted Hours,
⁠While Love,—Love brings me you, to share my rest! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Now I would ask you for one thing more;
⁠For God's sake let me go!
Truly the Greeks were wise who smiled,
⁠Saying, in days gone by,
Love has only the heart of a child
⁠And the wings of a butterfly! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Yet what am I that my song should shame you,
⁠What strength have I, that I call you weak?
Ah, Love alone has the right to blame you
⁠And He is a God and will not speak.
One thing there is yet to be glad of; Fate
⁠In making us one has not left us three. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ And she shall crave for thy love and thee,
⁠Who was erst so coldly calm,
For the subtle scents of my honeyed flowers
⁠Shall soothe her like a charm,
Till she shall long for a child of thine
⁠To nestle within her arm. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ The people's heart, which is always true,
⁠Would give it a sweeter name.
"Love-child": name that is tender with love;
⁠With joyous passion and youth.
Man's own sad laws have blinded his eyes,
⁠But some of us see the truth! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Morocco
Oh, walled, white City, rising from the plain,
⁠Between the grey-green grass, the grey-blue skies,
How we have longed for you, and watched in vain
⁠Till your pale beauty rose upon our eyes. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Aziz
"What dost thou murmur?" "Nothing. Go, Mir Khan.
The last faint light has left the lilac hills,
And thou shouldst start. Even disguised as now
In the disfiguring raiment of a slave,
Thy beauty shines like evening stars, ablaze
Through dusky mists that but enhance their glow
Walk warily, Mir Khan, and hide thine eyes,
Lest women see, and passion shipwreck thee
Ere thou hast reached thy fort——"
Mir Khan
Ere thou hast reached thy fort——" "Whence I return
With a picked squadron to deliver thee."
Aziz
"Why dost thou hesitate?" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ The spindrift blows from the waves that race
⁠From stress of the outer sea.
The restless wind has ever a sigh
⁠And the waves are salt as tears,
Maybe because of the dead who lie
⁠Where never the sunlight peers. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ That sends persuasive influence
⁠To touch the human mind,
Appeals to some strange, inner sense
⁠That Love can never find.
Love always needs his ally, Youth,
⁠Or lost is all his charm;
A sunset is a golden truth
⁠Nor age nor ill can harm. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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!" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ I led thee as a slave away
⁠From Maroc's market-place?
Are we not all the slaves of love?
The very stars that wheel above
⁠Are bound by time and space!
I struck the fetters from thy hands
Only to forge thee stronger bands ”

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Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ Were fain to linger round her door
⁠With shells and kindred ocean toys.
Yet was their love restrained by fear,
⁠So still she was, so calm and pale,
She seemed a star, remotely dear,
⁠No human love might dare assail. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ 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 ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ The little Rani held him close
⁠And smiling answered low,
"My lover is so sweet to me
⁠I cannot let him go."
And once again she came to warn;
⁠The Rani begged reprieve,
"Love is so sweet and new to me
⁠How can I let him leave?" ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, Stars of the Desert (1903)

“ When flowers that bloom in the country,
⁠Have scented the heart of the town,
The songs of that Sultan of Singers,
We called the Caresser of Lutestrings,
Who lies in the gloom of the Kasbah,
⁠Whose lute is for ever laid down. ”

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

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Quotes from Stars of the Desert (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

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