A Dedication
by Adam Lindsay Gordon
They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter’s large floodgates are loosen’d,
And floods, freed by storm;
From broken-up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion–
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion,
Song shaped without form.
Whence gather’d?–The locust’s glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring os rowel and stirrup,
The wash of a wave.
The chauntof a marsh frog in rushes
That chimes through the pauses and hushes
Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes,
The tempests that rave.
In the deep’ning of dawn, when it dapples
The dusk of the sky,
With streaks like the redd’ning of apples,
The ripening of rye.
To eastward, when cluster by cluster,
Dim stars and dull planets, that muster,
Wax wan in a world of white lustre
That spreads far and high.
In the gathering of night gloom o’er head, in
The still silent change,
All fire-flush’d when forest trees redden
On slopes of the range.
When the gnarl’d knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seemed carved like weird columns Egyptian
With curious device–quaint inscription,
And heiroglyph strange.
In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
‘Twixt shadow and shine,
When each dew-laden air draught resembles
A long draught of wine;
When the skyline’s blue burnished resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some song in all hearts hath existence,–
Such songs have been mine.
A few random poems:
- On A Thief (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Advent by Patrick Kavanagh
- Ярослав Смеляков – Я отюдова уйду
- The Heart Of The Woman by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Довольно
- Sonnet to Italy by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
- Battalion-Relief by Siegfried Sassoon
- Vote Excerpt
- Living with Cancer by Nin Andrews
- Sonet 56 by William Alexander
- Closing by William Butler Yeats
- Émigrés by Anna Barkova
- Владимир Корнилов – Рифма
- Высоцкий – Спасибо, что живой: стих, текст “Мой черный человек в костюме сером” – Poetry Monster
- Inscription on a Grotto, the Work of Nine Ladies. poem – Alexander Pope
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
- Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 113: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 110: Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 10: For shame, deny that thou bear’st love to any by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 107: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 105: Let not my love be called idolatry by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LIV by William Shakespeare
- Silvia by William Shakespeare
- Sigh No More by William Shakespeare
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

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 – 1870) was an Australian or British-Australian poet, horseman, police officer and politician. He is considered to be one of the first national Australian poets.