SONG OF GULBAZ
by: Laurence Hope (1865-1904)
- S it safe
to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes
- No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?
-
- "Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair
is soft and scented,
- Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented.
-
- "Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf
nest,
- What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless
rest?"
-
- But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and
slight,
- Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the
night.
-
- Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady
closes,
- Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath
the roses.
-
- And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I
had sooner known!
- Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me all alone.
-
- "Since you said the rose-leaf cover sweet protection
gave, but slight,
- I have found this dear young lover to protect me through
the Night!"
"Song of Gulbaz" is reprinted
from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1921. |
MORE
POEMS BY LAURENCE HOPE |
|