Midsummer, 1867.
We have heard many sermons, you and I,
And many more may hear,
When sitting quiet in cathedral nave,
With folded palms and faces meek and grave;-
But few like this one, dear.
We ofttimes watch together ‘fore the veil,
With reverent, gleaming eyes,
While priestly hands are busy with the folds,-
And pant to see the holy place, which holds
Life’s dreadest mysteries.
We watch weak, foolish fingers straying o’er
The broidered boss, to grasp
Vaguely at some small end of thread, and twist
And shake the glorious pattern into mist,
And leave us nought to clasp.
We watch, with eyes dilated, some strong hand
Of nerve and muscle, trace
The grand, faint outlines, erewhile undefined
To our slow earth-enfolded sense, and find
The great design-the shadow from behind-
Dawning before our face.
But seldom do we see, dear, you and I,
The pattern melt in light,
And all the shine flow out on us, uncheck’d-
With eyes of soul and not of intellect-
As we did see that night.
It was a summer-night-the sun was low,
But overlaid the sea,
And made gold-crystals of the wet sea-sand,
And drew our shadows short upon the strand
That stretched out shallowly.
It was a Sunday night-far off we heard
The solemn vesper-chime
From some grey wind-swept steeple by the shore,
Chanting “For ev-er-more! for ev-er-more!”
While the deep sea beat time.
We wandered far that night, dear, you and I,
We wandered out of reach,-
Until the golden distances grew grey,
And narrowed in the glory, as it lay
‘Mid horizon and beach.
We wandered far along the lonely waste,
Where seldom foot had trod;
The world behind us dared not to intrude-
The summer silence and the solitude
Were only filled with God.
We sat down on the sand there, you and I,
We sat down awed and dumb,
And watched the fiery circle fall and fall
Through solemn folds of purple, and the small
Soft ripples go and come.
There was not wind enough to stir the reeds
Around us, nor to curl
The sheeny, dimpled surface of the deep;
The waters murmured low, as half in sleep,
With measured swish and swirl.
Two sea-birds came and dabbled in the pools,
And cried their plaintive cry,
As their strong wings swept o’er us as we sat
(No profanation of the stillness that,
But added sanctity).
They flecked the crimson shallows with black streaks,
Low-wheeling to and fro,
Crying their bold, sweet cry, as knowing well
It was a place where God, not man, did dwell-
A father, not a foe.
*
Ah, we hear many sermons, you and I-
The poor words fall and drown;
But this, whose speech was silence, this has stirred
The stream of years,-and aye it will be heard
As when that sun went down!
A few random poems:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Странная сказка
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот для чего мужику самолет
- Wind on the Hill by AA Milne
- Pioneers! O Pioneers! by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- Metamorphoses Of The Moon by Sylvia Plath
- Olney Hymn 40: Peace After A Storm by William Cowper
- Ольга Ермолаева – Просила тебя у мертвой и выпросила у мертвой
- He Reproves The Curlew by William Butler Yeats
- Bag-Snatching In Dublin by Stevie Smith
- Conversation
- Revelation
- Five Songs – II by W H Auden
- Anticipation poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Church Going by Philip Larkin
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
- Ballade Of Dead Ladies poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Cleopatra’s Needle poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Blind Love poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Autumn poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Aucassin poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Amoureuse poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of His Books poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Dream poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Dead Ladies poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Dead Cities poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Cleopatra’s Needle poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Bookworm poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Blind Love poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Autumn poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Aucassin poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Against The Jesuits poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Auld Maitland poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Annan Water poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Alison Gross poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Aesop poem – Andrew Lang poems
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.