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:
- Robert Burns: To Ruin:
- Юнна Мориц – Ёжик резиновый
- Creative Writing For Stress Relief
- My Mother’s Body by Marge Piercy
- Lifetime Of Death by Steve Sant
- Robert Burns: It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonie Face:
- Fragment poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Pax Britannica poem – Alfred Austin
- Яков Полонский – На пути
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope
- Ghazal 119 by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Gospel Music Inspires Body & Soul
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- A Winter Eden by Robert Frost
- The Carpenter’s Son by Sara Teasdale
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
- Getting There by Sylvia Plath
- Full Fathom Five by Sylvia Plath
- Frog Autumn by Sylvia Plath
- Firesong by Sylvia Plath
- Finisterre by Sylvia Plath
- Fiesta Melons by Sylvia Plath
- Fever 103° by Sylvia Plath
- Female Author by Sylvia Plath
- Faun by Sylvia Plath
- Face Lift by Sylvia Plath
- Event by Sylvia Plath
- Elm by Sylvia Plath
- Ella Mason And Her Eleven Cats by Sylvia Plath
- Edge by Sylvia Plath
- Eavesdropper by Sylvia Plath
- Doomsday by Sylvia Plath
- Dialogue En Route by Sylvia Plath
- Dialogue Between Ghost And Priest by Sylvia Plath
- Departure by Sylvia Plath
- Denouement Villanelle by Sylvia Plath
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.