Our souls sit close and silently within,
and their own webs from their own entrails spin;
and when eyes meet far off,
our sense is such that spider-like,
we feel the tenderest touch.
Dryden
The following is a bunch of poetry
and such that I have run across over the years. I hope you enjoy it as
much as I have.
The Teak Forest
...But your words were flame and your kisses
fire,
And who shall resist a strong desire?
Not I, whose life is a broken boat
On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat.
And, whether I came in love or hate,
That I came to you was written by Fate
In every hue of the blood-red sky,
In every tone of the peacocks' cry.
While every gust of the Jungle night
Was fanning the flame you had set alight.
For these things have power to stir the
blood
And compel us all to their own chance mood.
And to love or not we are no more free
Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.
We are ever and always slaves of these,
Of the suns that scorch and the winds that
freeze,
Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry
air,
Of the half heard howl from the far off
lair.
These chance things master us ever. Compel
To the heights of Heaven, the depths of
Hell.
Whether I love you? You do not ask,
Nor waste yourself on the thankless task.
I give your kisses at least return,
What matter whether they freeze or burn.
I feel the strength of your fervent arms,
What matter whether it heals or harms...
Laurence Hope
To the Unattainable:
Lament of Mahomed Akram
I would have taken Golden Stars from the
sky for your necklace,
I would have shaken rose-leaves for your rest from all the rose-trees.
But you had no need; the short sweet grass sufficied for your slumber,
And you took no heed of such trifles as gold or a necklace.
There is an hour, at twilight, too heavy with memory.
There is a flower that I fear, for your hair had its fragrance.
I would have squandered Youth for you, and its hope and its promise,
Before you wandered, careless, away from my useless passion.
But what is the use of my speech, since I know of no words to recall you?
I am praying that Time may teach, you, your Cruelty, me Forgetfulness.
Laurence Hope
Song of the Colours:
by Taj Mahomed
Rose-colour
Rose Pink
am I, the colour gleams and glows
In many a flower;
her lips, those tender doors
By which, in time
of love, love's essence flows
From him to her,
are dyed in delicate Rose.
Mine is the earliest
Ruby light that pours
Out of the East,
when day's white gates unclose.
On downy peach,
and maiden's downier cheek
I, in a flush
of radiant bloom, alight,
Clinging, at sunset,
to the shimmering peak
I veil its snow
in floods of Roseate light.
Azure
Mine is the
heavenly hue of Azure skies,
Where the white
clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings,
Mine the sweet,
shadowed light in innocent eyes,
Whose lovely looks
light only on lovely things.
Mine the Blue Distance,
delicate and clear,
Mine the Blue
Glory of the morning sea,
All that the soul
so longs for, finds not here,
Fond eyes deceive
themselves, and find in me.
Scarlet
Hail! to the
Royal Red of living Blood,
Let loose by steel
in spirit-freeing flood,
Forced from faint
forms, by toil or torture torn
Staining the patient
gates of life new born.
Color of War and
Rage, of Pomp and Show,
Banners that flash,
red flags that flaunt and glow,
Colour of Carnage,
Glory, also Shame,
Raiment of women
women may not name.
I hide in mines,
where unborn Rubies dwell,
Flicker and flare
in fitful fire of Hell,
The outpressed
life-blood of the grape is mine,
Hail! to the Royal
Purple Red of Wine.
Strong am I, over
strong, to eyes that tire,
In the hot hue
of Rapine, Riot, Flame.
Death and Despair
are black, War and Desire,
The two red cards
in Life's unequal game.
Green
I am the Life
of Forests, and Wandering Streams,
Green as the feathery
reeds the Florican love,
Young as a maiden,
who of her marriage dreams,
Still sweetly
inexperienced in ways of Love.
Colour of Youth
and Hope, some waves are mine,
Some emerald reaches
of the evening sky.
See, in the Spring,
my sweet green Promise shine,
Never to be fulfilled,
of by and by.
Never to be fulfilled;
leaves bud, and ever
Something is wanting,
something falls behind;
The flowered Solstice
comes indeed, but never
That light and
lovely summer men divined.
Violet
I were the
colour of Things, (if hue they had)
That are hard
to name.
Of curious, twisted
thoughts that men call "mad"
Or oftener "shame."
Of that delicate
vice, that is hardly vice,
So reticent, rare,
Ethereal, as the
scent of buds and spice,
In this Eastern
air.
On palm-fringed
shores I colour the Cowrie shell,
With its edges
curled;
And, deep in Datura
poison buds, I dwell
In a perfumed
world.
My lilac tinges
the edge of the eveing sky
Where the sunset
clings.
My purple lends
an Imperial Majesty
to the robes of
kings.
Laurence Hope
