'The Garden of Kama' Summary

The poetry in this volume was characteristic of all of Nicolson's poems, making liberal use of the imagery and symbols from the poets of the North-West Frontier of India and the Sufi poets of Persia. The poems are typically about unrequited love and loss.

The book was initially praised upon its release by many prominent poets, Thomas Hardy among them, although some reviewers were uncertain about the authenticity of the translations. James Darmesteter, Professor of Persian at the prestigious College de France, Paris, embarrassingly documented that the images used by the supposed frontier bards were in reality symbols of the latent Sufi nature of their songs. They were later exposed as being original works from the West, although partly inspired by the Sufi.