Late, late, the prize is drawn, the goal attained,
The Heart’s Desire fulfilled, Love’s guerdon gained.
Wealth’s use is past, Fame’s crown of laurel mocks
The downward-drooping head and grizzled locks.
The end is reached-the end of toil and strife-
The end of life.
Love flowers and fades like grass, and flowers again;
The spendthrift lovers waste themselves in vain;
Their fiery passions burn out one by one,
And then, alas! when their best days are done,
Spirit and body find their perfect mate-
So late! So late!
Long-sought, long seeking, through the lonely years,
The wanderers meet to weep their useless tears
For time and chance irrevocably flown,
Dear hopes outlived and happy faiths outgrown,
Children unborn, the myriad joys unseen
That might have been.
Not for the spring and morning-time of youth
The perfect flower of slow-unfolding truth,
The perfect love, that dreams of youth foretell,
But youth knows not and youth could never tell;
That light celestial, as of sunset fires
When day expires.
Late comes the gift that crowns the hungry quest,
Like ripe wheat-harvest in a land at rest,
And comes alone, a consecrated cup,
To those proved worthy to sit down and sup.
To them-aye, aye, despite their treasure lost,
‘T’is worth the cost.
‘T’is worth the cost to reach the heights at last,
Ere eyes are dim and daylight overpast.
To see one aim achieved, one dream fulfilled,
Ere striving brain and trusting heart are stilled.
To live one glorious hour-its price of pain
Is never paid in vain.
A few random poems:
- Six-Word Poem by Monty Gilmer
- The Princess In The Tower by Sara Teasdale
- Andante Con Moto by William Ernest Henley
- Николай Языков – Вот яблоки так яблоки, на славу
- Diary of a Palestinian Wound by Mahmoud Darwish
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- Ship Starting, The. by Walt Whitman
- On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen
- The Evenèn Star O’ Zummer by William Barnes
- A dragonfly that committed suicide by Preeth Nambiar
- The Workbox by Thomas Hardy
- Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Омар Хайям – Безгрешными приходим и грешим
- Grow Up: Time to Give Up Your YA Books
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
- A Mesh by Shahida Latif
- Tear of warm dew of mind by Seema Gupta
- Your Time’s Comin’ by Shel Silverstein
- Workin’ It Out by Shel Silverstein
- Who’s Taller? by Shel Silverstein
- Who does she think she is…. by Shel Silverstein
- When She Cries by Shel Silverstein
- Ugliest Man In Town by Shel Silverstein
- Tryin’ On Clothes by Shel Silverstein
- They’ve Put A Brassiere On A Camel by Shel Silverstein
- The Worlds Greatest Smoke Off by Shel Silverstein
- The Winner by Shel Silverstein
- The Voice by Shel Silverstein
- The Unicorn by Shel Silverstein
- The Sitter by Shel Silverstein
- The Perfect Wave by Shel Silverstein
- The Perfect High by Shel Silverstein
- The Oak and the Rose by Shel Silverstein
- The Nap Taker by Shel Silverstein
- The Monkey by Shel Silverstein
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

Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.