Kashmiri Song

 By  Laurence Hope - Poetry Foundation

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?

Who do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far, 

Before you agonize them in farewell?

Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,

Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,

Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.

Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float

On those cool waters where we used to dwell,

I would have rather felt you round my throat,

Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!

Source:  India's Love Lyrics (Dodd Mead & Company, 1906)

 Laurence Hope   1865-1904

Born in Gloucestershire, the British poet Adela Florence Cory was raised by extended family in England after her father, a colonel in the army, was posted to Lahore, India.  At 16 Cory joined her father and two sisters in India, where they edited the Sind Gazzette.