No; thou’rt a fool, I’ll swear, if e’er thou grant;
Much of my veneration thou must want,
When once thy kindness puts my ignorance out,
For a learn’d age is always least devout.
Keep still thy distance; for at once to me
Goddess and woman too thou canst not be;
Thou’rt queen of all that sees thee, and as such
Must neither tyrannize nor yield too much;
Such freedom give as may admit command,
But keep the forts and magazines in thine hand.
Thou’rt yet a whole world to me, and dost fill
My large ambition; but ’tis dang’rous still,
Lest I like the Pellæan prince* should be,
And weep for other worlds, having conquered thee.
When Love has taken all thou hast away,
His strength by too much riches will decay.
Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand
Than women can be placed by Nature’s hand;
And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be,
To change thee, as thou’rt there, for very thee.
Thy sweetness is so much within me placed,
That shouldst thou nectar give, ‘twould spoil the taste.
Beauty at first moves wonder and delight;
‘Tis Nature’s juggling trick to cheat the sight;
We admire it, whilst unknown, but after more
Admire ourselves for liking it before.
Love, like a greedy hawk, if we give way,
Does overgorge himself with his own prey;
Of very hopes a surfeit he’ll sustain
Unless by fears he cast them up again:
His spirit and sweetness dangers keep alone;
If once he lose his sting, he grows a drone.
A few random poems:
- The Happy Lunatic by William Somervile
- The Remains by Mark Strand
- A Song of Enchantment by Walter de la Mare
- Arrival by Philip Larkin
- Владимир Костров – Бедное сердце болит спозаранку
- Как прекрасно твое имя
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci poem – John Keats poems
- This Dust was Once the Man. by Walt Whitman
- He Reproves The Curlew by William Butler Yeats
- Arcades poem – John Milton poems
- With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn
- An Ode in Time of Hesitation by William Vaughn Moody
- Poem Stories
- Frog Autumn by Sylvia Plath
- The Vaïces That Be Gone by William Barnes
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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.