When the investing darkness growls,
And deep reverberates to deep;
When keyhole whines and chimney howls,
And all the roofs and windows weep;
Then, through the doorless walls of sleep,
The still-sealed ear and shuttered sight,
Phantoms of memory steal and creep,
The very ghosts of sound and light-
Dream-visions and dream-voices of a bygone night.
I see again, I hear again,
Where lightnings flash and house-eaves drip,
A flying swirl of waves and rain-
That storm-path between Sound and Rip.
I feel the swaying of the ship
In every gust that rocks the trees,
And taste that brine upon my lip
And smell the freshness of the breeze
That sped us through the welter of those racing seas.
I hear the menace of the call
To rope and rivet, wheel and mast,
In the swift onrush of the squall,
The challenge of the thundering blast
To daring men as it sweeps past;
And in my dream I have no dread.
Rivet and rope are firm and fast,
The clear lights shining, green and red,
The quiet eyes of sentry watching overhead.
What epic battles pass unsung!
It was a war of gods befell
On that wild night when we were young.
They rode, like cavalry of hell,
The mighty winds, the monstrous swell,
On their white horses, fierce and fleet;
They stood at bay, invincible,
Where pulsed beneath our sliding feet
The faithful iron heart that never lost a beat.
How the sharp sea-spume lashed and stung!
How the salt sea-wind tugged and tare
And clawed and mauled us where we clung,
With panting breasts and streaming hair,
To our frail eyrie in mid-air!
How we exulted in the fight-
With neither haste nor halt to dare
Those Titans furies in their might,
Undaunted and unswerving in our insect flight!
No lap of exquisite repose!
A mortar wherein souls are brayed;
An anvil ringing to the blows
Whereby true men are shaped, and made
Divinely strong and unafraid.
Such gallant sailor-men there be-
Never unready or dismayed,
Though ‘t’s the face of death they see
In cyclone, fire and fog, and white surf on the lee.
Not only in the sylvan bower,
On dreaming hill, by sleeping mere,
The holy place-the sacred hour.
Beset by every form of fear,
Darkness ahead and danger near,
Sorely hard-driven and hard-prest,
But still unspent and of good cheer-
He finds them who can pass the test,
Who never winks an eye and never stays to rest
A few random poems:
- Where Be Ye Going, You Devon Maid? poem – John Keats poems
- Иван Бунин – Норд-ост
- Memoriam A. H. H.: 72. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Devotion by Robert Frost
- Ballade Of The Southern Cross poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Николай Гербель – Изюмцам
- Now, What is Poetry? poem – Yang Wan-Li poems | Poetry Monster
- A Kiss by Thomas Lux
- Dedication For A Plot Of Ground by William Carlos Williams
- I Can’t Touch The Sun by Shel Silverstein
- In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin
- Николай Тихонов – Ленинград
- Written Manna by Rangam Chiru
- Стефан Малларме – В альбом
- Song of the Bowmen of Shu poem – Ezra Pound poems
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
- Огюст Барбье – Лев
- Огюст Барбье – Леонардо да Винчи
- Огюст Барбье – Кьяйя
- Огюст Барбье – Котел
- Огюст Барбье – Корреджо
- Огюст Барбье – Кола ди Риенци
- Огюст Барбье – Известность
- Огюст Барбье – Идол
- Огюст Барбье – Эпилог
- Огюст Барбье – Джульетта милая
- Огюст Барбье – Джин
- Огюст Барбье – Дант
- Огюст Барбье – Чимароза
- Огюст Барбье – Бук
- Огюст Барбье – Берега моря
- Огюст Барбье – Барабанщик Барра
- Огюст Барбье – Аллегри
- Новелла Матвеева – Закон песен
- Новелла Матвеева – Я, говорит, не воин
- Новелла Матвеева – Художник, незнакомый с поощреньем
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.