T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Teak Forest
By Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Nicolson) (1865–1904)(From India’s Love Lyrics, 1902) WHETHER I loved you who shall say? | |
| Whether I drifted down your way | |
| In the endless River of Chance and Change, | |
| And you woke the strange | |
| Unknown longings that have no names, | 5 |
| But burn us all in their hidden flames, | |
| Who shall say? | |
| Life is a strange and a wayward thing: | |
| We heard the bells of the Temples ring, | |
| The married children, in passing, sing. | 10 |
| The month of marriage, the month of spring, | |
| Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers | |
| That bloom in a fiercer light than ours, | |
| And, under a sky more fiercely blue, | |
| I came to you! | 15 |
| You told me tales of your vivid life | |
| Where death was cruel and danger rife— | |
| Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees, | |
| Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze, | |
| Of southern noontides and eastern nights, | 20 |
| Where love grew frantic with strange delights, | |
| While men were slaying and maidens danced, | |
| Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced. | |
| Then, swift as a swallow heading south, | |
| I kissed your mouth! | 25 |
| One night when the plains were bathed in blood | |
| From sunset light in a crimson flood, | |
| We wandered under the young teak trees | |
| Whose branches whined in the light night breeze; | |
| You led me down to the water’s brink, | 30 |
| “The Spring where the Panthers come to drink | |
| At night; there is always water here | |
| Be the season never so parched and sere.” | |
| Have we no souls of beasts in the forms of men? | |
| I fain would have tasted your life-blood then. | 35 |
| The night fell swiftly; this sudden land | |
| Can never lend us a twilight strand | |
| ’Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night, | |
| But takes—as it gives—at once, the light. | |
| We laid us down on the steep hillside, | 40 |
| While far below us wild peacocks cried, | |
| And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass, | |
| The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass. | |
| We listened; knew not whether they went | |
| On love or hunger the more intent. | 45 |
| And under your kisses I hardly knew | |
| Whether I loved or hated you. | |
| But your words were flame and your kisses fire, | |
| And who shall resist a strong desire? | |
| Not I, whose life is a broken boat | 50 |
| 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. | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| What matter whether they freeze or burn. | |
| I feel the strength of your fervent arms, | |
| What matter whether it heals or harms. | |
| You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent. | |
| You ask no question, but rest content | 75 |
| So I am with you to take your kiss, | |
| And perhaps I value you more for this. | |
| For this is Wisdom; to love, to live, | |
| To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give, | |
| To ask no question, to make no prayer, | 80 |
| To kiss the lips and caress the hair, | |
| Speed passion’s ebb as you greet its flow,— | |
| To have,—to hold,—and,—in time,—let go! | |
| And this is our Wisdom: we rest together | |
| On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather, | 85 |
| And watch the skies as they pale and burn, | |
| The golden stars in their orbits turn, | |
| While Love is with us, and Time and Peace, | |
| And life has nothing to give but these. | |
| But, whether you love me, who shall say, | 90 |
| Or whether you, drifting down my way | |
| In the great sad River of Chance and Change, | |
| With your looks so weary and words so strange, | |
| Lit my soul from some hidden flame | |
| To a passionate longing without a name, | 95 |
| Who shall say? | |
| Not I, who am but a broken boat, | |
| Content for awhile to drift afloat | |
| In the little noontide of love’s delights | |
| Between two Nights. | 100 |