Spirit and Breath of Life, whate’er Thy name!
Bear with Thy creature, Man,
That makes his dwelling-place a blot of shame
Upon the Ordered Plan.
Not Thy hand, O Divine Designer, hurled
Athwart the starlit skies
One blood-stained, greed-diseased, hate-eaten world,
To shock celestial eyes.
Not Thy default, O Beautiful, this crust
Of fratricidal crime,
These maggot-breeds of hunger and of lust
That Thy fair work begrime.
But ours, who mock Thee from the highest place,
And in the light of day;
Who claim to lead an upward-struggling race,
And will not seek the way.
Guards of the human birthright, at Thy call-
A city sacked and burned;
Guards of the house that is the home of all,
But whence the weak are spurned.
Brothers, to whom the outcast brothers cry
As with a voice unknown;
Stewards of Nature’s bounty, that deny
The lawful heirs their own.
Thou that hast made us men, and earth so fair,
To be so vilely used,
Give space for late repentance and repair
Of sacred trust abused.
Give time, Eternal, that we stanch these tears,
Give time to heal this sore,
That our brief speck amid the shining spheres
Disgrace its birth no more.
But sail ethereal seas, an orb of light,
To bear Thy purpose on
Until it fades into the cosmic night
Where the dead worlds have gone.
A few random poems:
- Николай Некрасов – Деревенские новости
- My Paramour Was Loneliness
- Objector by William Stafford
- The Rose Of Battle by William Butler Yeats
- Atalanta’s Race by William Morris
- Control by Sidney Lanier
- Two Travellers in the Place Vendome poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – За четыре года советской власти… (Главполитпросвет №248)
- The Fable by Yvor Winters
- The Sailor’s Mother by William Wordsworth
- The Wicked Postman by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Rajput Love Song by Sarojini Naidu
- A Grace after Dinner by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Москва-Одесса
- The Nuclear Ghost Towns
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Buried Train by Robert Bly
- The Defunct Drugstore by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass
- Snowbanks North of the House by Robert Bly
- Sleep Spaces by Robert Desnos
- Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow by Robert Duncan
- No, Love Is Not Dead by Robert Desnos
- Need by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- My Mother Would Be a Falconress by Robert Duncan
- Misery And Splendor by Robert Hass
- Lying Down by Robert Desnos
- Long Long Ago by Robert Desnos
- Iowa City: Early April by Robert Hass
- Interrupted Meditation by Robert Hass
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- Identity of Images by Robert Desnos
- I Have Dreamed of You so Much by Robert Desnos
- Heroic Simile by Robert Hass
- Fairy Tale by Robert Desnos
- Dove in the Arch by Robert Desnos
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.