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.
***
Hard biter in a toothless mouth is she, The will may wane, but she a winner stays.
***
Spare me to win glory’s forbidden prize, Glory in hardship, sloth in comfort lies.
***
Em’nence is not with cheap comfort bought, Hear the honey gath’rers bee-stung cries
***
No indolent dreaming dawdler am I, Nor am content, while riches I descry.
***
Life’s heaving tides of woe shall spare me not, Unless I, its unblocked courses defy
***
Softly do town girls their faces adorn, But Bedu are from garish colours shorn.
***
Town beauty is with pampered softness sought, The Bedu are with unsought beauty born.
***
Grave harm have lovers to themselves done, Loving, ere understanding life begun.
***
They, with with’ered and wasted souls, After vile, though pretty-faced creatures run.
***
Beauti’ful women, as experienced men know, Are but darkness wrapped in dazzling light aglow.
***
A life of friv’lous youth and worried age, Its futile course to futile death will flow
***
When my hands from brimming cups weakly shook, I awoke, ere sense my wined mind forsook.
***
Shunning choice wines, as rich as purest gold, I, of spring showers silv’ry draught partook.
***
Secrets I keep no companion can discern, Nor to it can wine its potent way burn.
***
Soft women I have for an hour, and then, Deserts I roam, never more to return.
***
Courage to reason second place must take, For valour should not balanced judgment shake.
***
But if both in a hard soul united are, Then Glory’s realms their own demesne shall make.
***
Defiantly live, or in honour die, Midst slashing blades and banners flapping high
***
Rage is best dispatched by lances’ points, and Spearing spiteful chests shall their spite deny.
***
Face with cool, carefree calm life’s caretorn climes, As long as your soul with its body chimes.
***
Your joys of yore have passed beyond recall, And sadness can summon not bygone times.
***
A charger’s saddle is an exalted throne, The best companions are books alone.
***
Without hardship everyone would prevail, The generous are poor, and courage kills its own.
***
One’s ill-conduct brooding mistrust will breed, For dark thoughts on darker suspicions feed.
***
Sland’ring friends with what foes have slandered one, Thus in black nights of doubt one’s life will lead.
***
Fie’ry rashness may as valour be seen, And nervous anger may cowardice mean.
***
Arms are carried by people everywhere, But not all claws are lion’s, nor as keen.
***
Cowards see vapid impotence as sense, Such is treacherous villainy’s defense.
***
Each of valour’s divers forms enriches, But valiant wisdom is of worth immense.
***
Our dead we mourn, though we very well know, That but Vanity they leave ere they go.
***
Reflection upon life’s hard course shall teach, ‘Tis one to die as be slain by a foe.
***
Shoreless you would be of you were a sea. If rain, earth unable to contain ye.
***
Country and people of you I could warn, Of that which only Noah could foresee.
***
Misfortune’s arrows do upon me rain, Countless arrowheads does my heart sustain.
***
As more shafts at my studded heart fly, Steel upon Steel shatters the hardy twain.
***
At times in Bedu tents a home I find, Often, home is atop the camel’s hind,
***
My body a target for the brigand’s lance, To scorching heat my aching face unbind.
***
Though a noble lady and highly born, ‘Tis your unfeminine wisdom we mourn.
***
True spirit is from softer self distilled, As potent wine from sweeter grapes is drawn.
***
A few random poems:
- An Ode to the Queen by William Topaz McGonagall
- The Woodlark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sit Smiling by Rabindranath Tagore
- Pan’s Lament by Rose Mary Boehm
- Олег Чупров – Тают в сумраке лица
- The Perfect Marriage by Vachel Lindsay
- I have fallen into unconsciousness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Омар Хайям – Даже с самой прекрасной из милых подруг
- Silent Steps by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Fallen Elm poem – Alfred Austin
- Remorse: A Fragment by Robert Burns
- A Poem
- Far In a Western Brookland poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Владимир Маяковский – Ров (РОСТА №181)
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
- On A Picture Of A Black Centaur By Edmund Dulac by William Butler Yeats
- Old Tom Again by William Butler Yeats
- Old Memory by William Butler Yeats
- Oil And Blood by William Butler Yeats
- O Do Not Love Too Long by William Butler Yeats
- Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen by William Butler Yeats
- News For The Delphic Oracle by William Butler Yeats
- Never Give All The Heart by William Butler Yeats
- Mohini Chatterjee by William Butler Yeats
- Model For The Laureate by William Butler Yeats
- Michael Robartes And The Dancer by William Butler Yeats
- Men Improve With The Years by William Butler Yeats
- Memory by William Butler Yeats
- Meeting by William Butler Yeats
- Meditations In Time Of Civil War by William Butler Yeats
- Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- Blood And The Moon by William Butler Yeats
- Before The World Was Made by William Butler Yeats
- Beautiful Lofty Things by William Butler Yeats
- Baile And Aillinn by William Butler Yeats
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.