Last Poems: Translations from the Book of Indian Love
I, who of lighter love wrote many a verse,
Made public never words inspired by thee,
Lest strangers’ lips should carelessly rehearse
Things that were sacred and too dear to me.
Thy soul was noble; through these fifteen years
Mine eyes familiar, found no fleck nor flaw,
Stern to thyself, thy comrades’ faults and fears
Proved generously thine only law.
Small joy was I to thee; before we met
Sorrow had left thee all too sad to save.
Useless my love—as vain as this regret
That pours my hopeless life across thy grave.
Laurence Hope
---
Dedication to Malcolm Nicolson
The Masters
I Shall Forget
The Lament of Yasmini, the Dancing-Girl
Among the Rice Fields
The Bride
Unanswered
The Net of Memory
The Cactus Thicket
Song of the Peri
Though in my Firmament thou wilt not shine
The Convert
Ashore
Yasin Khan
Khristna and His Flute
Song of Jasoda
Song of Ramesram Temple Girl
The Rao of Ilore
To M. C. N.
Disappointment
On Pilgrimage
The Rice-boat
Lallji my Desire
Rutland Gate
Atavism
Middle-age
The Jungle Flower
From Behind the Lattice
Wings
Song of the Parao (Camping-ground)
The Tom-toms
Written in Cananore
I
II
Feroke
My Desire
Sher Afzul
Nay, not To-night
The Dying Prince
The Hut
My Paramour was Loneliness
The Rice was under Water
“Surface Rights”
Shivratri (the Night of Shiva)
The First Wife
I Arise and go Down to the River
Listen, Beloved
Oh, Unforgotten and Only Lover
Early Love
Vayu the Wind
