A poem by Alan Dugan
by Al Mutanabbi
A young soul in my ageing body plays, Though time’s sharp blades my weary visage raze.
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Hard biter in a toothless mouth is she, The will may wane, but she a winner stays.
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Spare me to win glory’s forbidden prize, Glory in hardship, sloth in comfort lies.
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Em’nence is not with cheap comfort bought, Hear the honey gath’rers bee-stung cries
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No indolent dreaming dawdler am I, Nor am content, while riches I descry.
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Life’s heaving tides of woe shall spare me not, Unless I, its unblocked courses defy
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Softly do town girls their faces adorn, But Bedu are from garish colours shorn.
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Town beauty is with pampered softness sought, The Bedu are with unsought beauty born.
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Grave harm have lovers to themselves done, Loving, ere understanding life begun.
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They, with with’ered and wasted souls, After vile, though pretty-faced creatures run.
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Beauti’ful women, as experienced men know, Are but darkness wrapped in dazzling light aglow.
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A life of friv’lous youth and worried age, Its futile course to futile death will flow
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When my hands from brimming cups weakly shook, I awoke, ere sense my wined mind forsook.
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Shunning choice wines, as rich as purest gold, I, of spring showers silv’ry draught partook.
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Secrets I keep no companion can discern, Nor to it can wine its potent way burn.
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Soft women I have for an hour, and then, Deserts I roam, never more to return.
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Courage to reason second place must take, For valour should not balanced judgment shake.
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But if both in a hard soul united are, Then Glory’s realms their own demesne shall make.
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Defiantly live, or in honour die, Midst slashing blades and banners flapping high
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Rage is best dispatched by lances’ points, and Spearing spiteful chests shall their spite deny.
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Face with cool, carefree calm life’s caretorn climes, As long as your soul with its body chimes.
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Your joys of yore have passed beyond recall, And sadness can summon not bygone times.
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A charger’s saddle is an exalted throne, The best companions are books alone.
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Without hardship everyone would prevail, The generous are poor, and courage kills its own.
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One’s ill-conduct brooding mistrust will breed, For dark thoughts on darker suspicions feed.
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Sland’ring friends with what foes have slandered one, Thus in black nights of doubt one’s life will lead.
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Fie’ry rashness may as valour be seen, And nervous anger may cowardice mean.
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Arms are carried by people everywhere, But not all claws are lion’s, nor as keen.
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Cowards see vapid impotence as sense, Such is treacherous villainy’s defense.
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Each of valour’s divers forms enriches, But valiant wisdom is of worth immense.
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Our dead we mourn, though we very well know, That but Vanity they leave ere they go.
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Reflection upon life’s hard course shall teach, ‘Tis one to die as be slain by a foe.
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Shoreless you would be of you were a sea. If rain, earth unable to contain ye.
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Country and people of you I could warn, Of that which only Noah could foresee.
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Misfortune’s arrows do upon me rain, Countless arrowheads does my heart sustain.
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As more shafts at my studded heart fly, Steel upon Steel shatters the hardy twain.
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At times in Bedu tents a home I find, Often, home is atop the camel’s hind,
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My body a target for the brigand’s lance, To scorching heat my aching face unbind.
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Though a noble lady and highly born, ‘Tis your unfeminine wisdom we mourn.
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True spirit is from softer self distilled, As potent wine from sweeter grapes is drawn.
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A few random poems:
- REGENERATING by Satish Verma
- Turtledove of the Green Land – Dedicated to Tunisian poet, Huda Hajji by Nizar Sartawi
- I Just Wanna Make You Mine Girl by Miraj Patel
- Lament For The Two Brothers Slain By Each Others Hand
- This Living Hand poem – John Keats poems
- Oh Life I Have Taken You For My Lover
- Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin
- First Sight by Philip Larkin
- it flows by Raj Arumugam
- The Mask by William Butler Yeats
- A VOW TO VENUS by Robert Herrick
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Here, Sailor. by Walt Whitman
- Coal-Truck by T. Wignesan
- Internal Migration Being Tour
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
- Vorticism Is A Choka In Its Modular Home
- Violets Beauty Passing
- Victor
- Untitled
- Traveling
- Tracks In The Private Country
- Thoughts Religious Content
- The World
- The Sacred Tree
- The Poet And Imagination
- The Holy Tree
- The Emigrant
- Tears
- Simple Heart
- Silence
- She
- Sealed Appropriate
- Seal
- Sea Salt A Villanelle
- Salamis Quot
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
Alan Dugan (1923 – 2003) an American poet, a contemporary classic of American poetry.