A poem by Alistar Crowley (1875-1947)
El Arabi! El Arabi! Burn in thy brilliance, mine own!
O Beautiful! O Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is
That poises head and hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone
Of tom-tom and of cymbal wooed by love’s assassin sorceries!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
The moon is down; we are alone;
May not our mouths meet, madden, mix, melt in the starlight of a kiss?
El Arabi!
There by the palms, the desert’s edge, I drew thee to my heart and held
Thy shy slim beauty for a splendid second; and fell moaning back,
Smitten by Love’s forked flashing rod -as if the uprooted mandrake yelled!
As if I had seen God, and died! I thirst! I writhe upon the rack!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
It is not love! I am compelled
By some fierce fate, a vulture poised, heaven’s single ominous speck of black.
El Arabi!
There in the lonely bordj across the dreadful lines of sleeping men,
Swart sons of the Sahara, thou didst writhe slim, sinuous and swift,
Warning me with a viper’s hiss -and was not death upon us then,
No bastard of thy maiden kiss? God’s grace, the all-surpassing gift!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
Yea, death is man’s Elixir when
Life’s pale wine foams and splashes over his imagination’s rim!
El Arabi!
El Arabi! El Arabi! witch-amber and obsidian
Thine eyes are, to ensorcell me, and leonine thy male caress.
Will not God grant us Paradise to end the music Earth began?
We play with loaded dice! He cannot choose but raise right hand to bless.
El Arabi! El Arabi!
Great is the love of God and man
While I am trembling in thine arms, wild wanderer of the wilderness!
El Arabi!

A few random poems:
- Николай Гербель – Песнь лейб-гвардии уланского полка
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чувство
- Владимир Маяковский – Чем отличается Красная Армия от царской?.. (РОСТА №559)
- Степан Щипачев – Потомкам
- Владимир Маяковский – Было с белым много дел… (Главполитпросвет №44)
- Drowning. Not Waving by P.J.Reed
- The Editor by William Ellery Leonard
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way by William Shakespeare
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Здравствуй, школа
- Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair by William Shakespeare
- The Woman In The Rye by Thomas Hardy
- At The Gate Of The Convent poem – Alfred Austin
- Hands by Russell Edson
- Николай Карамзин – К Алине на смерть ее супруга
- Владимир Маяковский – Дожмем! В России буржуазия побеждена… (РОСТА №841)
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
- The Dark House by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Choral Union by Siegfried Sassoon
- Survivors by Siegfried Sassoon
- Suicide In The Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon
- Stretcher Case by Siegfried Sassoon
- Storm and Sunlight by Siegfried Sassoon
- Stand-To: Good Friday Morning by Siegfried Sassoon
- South Wind by Siegfried Sassoon
- Song-Books of the War by Siegfried Sassoon
- Slumber-Song by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sick Leave by Siegfried Sassoon
- Secret Music by Siegfried Sassoon
- Remorse by Siegfried Sassoon
- Reconciliation by Siegfried Sassoon
- Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece by Siegfried Sassoon
- Picture-Show by Siegfried Sassoon
- Parted by Siegfried Sassoon
- October by Siegfried Sassoon
- Noah by Siegfried Sassoon
- Nimrod in September by Siegfried Sassoon
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