Works

How I loved you in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!

The touch of your lips was sweet,
Aziza whom I adore,
I lay at your slender feet,
And against their soft palms pressed,...

The sins of Youth are hardly sins,
So frank they are and free.
'T is but when Middle-age begins
We need morality.

Ah, pause and weigh this bitter truth:
That Middle-age, grown cold,...

Fate has given me many a gift
To which men most aspire,
Lovely, precious and costly things,
But not my heart's desire.

Many a man has a secret dream
Of where his soul would be,...

My paramour was loneliness
And lying by the sea,
Soft songs of sorrow and distress
He did beget in me.

Later another lover came
More meet for my desire,
"Radiant Beauty" was his name;...

Nay, not to-night; - the slow, sad rain is falling
Sorrowful tears, beneath a grieving sky,
Far off a famished jackal, faintly calling,
Renders the dusk more lonely with its cry.
...

As those who eat a Luscious Fruit, sunbaked,
Full of sweet juice, with zest, until they find
It finished, and their appetite unslaked,
And so return and eat the pared-off rind; -
...

Oh, unforgotten and only lover,
Many years have swept us apart,
But none of the long dividing seasons
Slay your memory in my heart.
In the clash and clamour of things unlovely...

I am waiting in the desert, looking out towards the sunset,
And counting every moment till we meet.
I am waiting by the marshes and I tremble and I listen
Till the soft sands thrill beneath your coming feet....

Oh, youthful bearer of my palanquin,
Thy glossy hair lies loosened on thy neck,
The "tears of labour" gem thy velvet skin,
Whose even texture knows no other fleck.
...

Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,
The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream.

The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from the West,...

Love, let me thank you for this!
Now we have drifted apart,
Wandered away from the sea, -
For the fresh touch of your kiss,
For the young warmth of your heart,
For your youth given to me.
...

You are all that is lovely and light,
Aziza whom I adore,
And, waking, after the night,
I am weary with dreams of you.
Every nerve in my heart is tense and sore...

Alas! alas! this wasted Night
With all its Jasmin-scented air,
Its thousand stars, serenely bright!
I lie alone, and long for you,
Long for your Champa-scented hair,
Your tranquil eyes of twilight hue;...

I shall never forget you, never. Never escape
Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.

The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
When it comes unsought...

Give me your self one hour; I do not crave
For any love, or even thought, of me.
Come, as a Sultan may caress a slave
And then forget for ever, utterly.

Come! as west winds, that passing, cool and wet,...

The Desert is parched in the burning sun
And the grass is scorched and white.
But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
We are camping here to-night.
I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,...

Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance,
Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea,
Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence,...

Alone, I wait, till her twilight gate
The Night slips quietly through,
With shadow and gloom, and purple bloom,
Flung over the Zenith blue.

Her stars that tremble, would fain dissemble...

His back is bent and his lips are blue,
Shivering out in the wet:
"Here's a florin, my man, for you,
Go and get drunk and forget!"

Right in the midst of a Christian land,...

A little breeze blew over the sea,
And it came from far away,
Across the fields of millet and rice,
All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice,
It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice,...