Kashmiri Song

"Kashmiri Song" is a well-known song by Amy Woodforde-Finden based on a poem by Laurence Hope, pseudonym of Adela Florence Nicolson.

The poem first appeared in Hope's first collection of poems, "The Garden of Kama" (1901), also known as "India's Love Lyrics".

The following year, when Amy Woodforde-Finden set to music "Four Indian Love Lyrics", "Kashmiri Song" emerged as the most popular, quickly becoming a drawing room standard and remaining popular until the Second World War.

The Poem

:::Kashmiri Song

:Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar, :Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell? :Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far, :Before you agonise them in farewell?

:Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains, :Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell, :How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins :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!

Interpretations

The poem/song has given rise to many interpretations, many of them associated with themes of forbidden love, sadomasochism, and miscegenation.

The phrase "beside the Shalimar" presumably refers to one of two Shalimar Gardens, the Shalimar Gardens Kashmir or the Shalimar Gardens Lahore. Although the former seems the likelier identification, given the song's title, Nicolson lived in Lahore, giving some weight to the latter.

Recordings

There have been numerous recordings of the song, including:
*One of only two Rudolph Valentino recordings in 1923.

Culture

The song has led an unusually varied life particularly in the field of popular culture. Some of the places where the song/poem is mentioned or quoted are:

*"The Sheik", a 1921 film starring Rudolph Valentino, based on the novel "The Sheik" by Edith Maude Hill.
*Ford Madox Ford's Ford's novel "Parade's End" (1924-1928).
*Jack Conroy's novel "A World to Win" (1935)
*The film "This Happy Breed" (1944) based on Noel Coward's stage play (1939).
*The film "Hers to Hold" sung by Deanna Durbin (1943)
*Henry Miller's "Sexus" (1949)
*A ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali (1997)
*Title of a short story by Anne Enright in her 2008 book "Yesterday's Weather".

External links

* [http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/a/a22/a2206/ Kashmiri Song sheet music] at [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Library of Congress]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/edrs/82205l.wav Maggie Teyte recording (1921)] at [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Library of Congress]