THE TEMPLE DANCING GIRL
translated into English by: Laurence Hope (1865-1904)
- OU will be mine; those lightly dancing feet,
- Falling as softly on the careless street
- As the wind-loosed petals of a flower,
- Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.
-
- And all the Temple's little links and laws
- Will not for long protect your loveliness.
- I have a stronger force to aid my cause,
- Nature's great Law, to love and to possess!
- Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay
- Wakeful, desiring what I might not see,
- I knew, (it helped those hours, from dusk to day,)
- In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me.
- You will consent, through all my veins like wine
- This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above,
- Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine
- Dim in a silent ecstasy of love.
- The clustered softness of your waving hair,
- That curious paleness which enchants me so,
- And all your delicate strength and youthful air,
- Destiny will compel you to bestow!
- Refuse, withdraw, and hesitate awhile,
- Your young reluctance does but fan the flame;
- My partner, Love, waits, with a tender smile,
- Who play against him play a losing game.
- I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this,
- The subtlest, most resistless, force we know
- Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss:
- The genius of the race will have it so!
- Yet, make it not too long, nor too intense
- My thirst; lest I should break beneath the strain,
- And the worn nerves, and over-wearied sense,
- Enjoy not what they spent themselves to gain.
- Lest, in the hour when you consent to share
- That human passion Beauty makes divine,
- I, over worn, should find you over fair,
- Lest I should die before I make you mine.
- You will consent, those slim, reluctant feet,
- Falling as lightly on the careless street
- As the white petals of a wind-worn flower,
- Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.
"The Temple Dancing Girl" is reprinted from India's Love Lyrics. Trans. Laurence Hope. New York: John Lane Co., 1906. |
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