Awake, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master’s humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark, how the strings awake!
And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure,
Too weak too wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou’rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by,
Bid thy strings silent lie,
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
A few random poems:
- Ольга Седакова – Прибавления к “Старым песням”
- Владимир Маяковский – Студенту пролетарию
- Easter Decorations
- Омар Хайям – Когда к жизни Любовь меня в мир призвала
- Владимир Британишский – Чюрлёнис
- Владимир Британишский – Гердер в Риге
- Eclogue IV by Virgil
- Аля Кудряшева – Про ангелов
- Георгий Иванов – Теперь, когда быстрее лавы
- Bishop Blougram’s Apology by Robert Browning
- The house where I was born (04) by Yves Bonnefoy
- Night by William Morris
- Near But Far Away by William Morris
- An Old Song by Rudyard Kipling
- The Mocking Bird by Timothy Thomas Fortune
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
- As a Beam O’er the Face of the Waters May Glow by Thomas Moore
- And Doth Not a Meeting Like This by Thomas Moore
- An Incantation by Thomas Moore
- An Expostulation to Lord King by Thomas Moore
- An Argument by Thomas Moore
- Alone in Crowds to Wander On by Thomas Moore
- All In a Family Way by Thomas Moore
- After the Battle by Thomas Moore
- Which way does the wind blow? by Thomas J Camp
- Virgule by Thomas Lux
- Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux
- Torn Shades by Thomas Lux
- The Road That Runs Beside The River by Thomas Lux
- The Progress of Poesy by Thomas Gray
- The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball by Thomas Lux
- The Inheritance by Thomas J Camp
- The Holy Mountain of Hope by Thomas Ziemer
- The Curse Upon Edward by Thomas Gray
- The Bard by Thomas Gray
- Sonnet On The Death Of Mr Richard West by Thomas Gray
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

Abraham Cowley (1618 – 1667), the Royalist Poet.Poet and essayist Abraham Cowley was born in London, England, in 1618. He displayed early talent as a poet, publishing his first collection of poetry, Poetical Blossoms (1633), at the age of 15. Cowley studied at Cambridge University but was stripped of his Cambridge fellowship during the English Civil War and expelled for refusing to sign the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644. In turn, he accompanied Queen Henrietta Maria to France, where he spent 12 years in exile, serving as her secretary. During this time, Cowley completed The Mistress (1647). Arguably his most famous work, the collection exemplifies Cowley’s metaphysical style of love poetry. After the Restoration, Cowley returned to England, where he was reinstated as a Cambridge fellow and earned his MD before finally retiring to the English countryside. He is buried at Westminster Abbey alongside Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. Cowley is a wonderful poet and an outstanding representative of the English baroque.