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:
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- Sonnet L by William Shakespeare
- Анатолий Жигулин – Белый-белый торжественный снег
- The Carnival by Robert Creeley
- On A Fowler, By Isidorus by William Cowper
- To the Right Hon. Lady Anne Coventry by William Somervile
- Михаил Кузмин – Все дни у Бога хороши
- In A Railroad Station by Sara Teasdale
- Robert Burns: The Lover’s Morning Salute To His Mistress:
- The Old Stone Cross by William Butler Yeats
- Mother, Among The Dustbins by Stevie Smith
- Additions: The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s by Thomas Hardy
- Robert Burns: Second Epistle To J. Lapraik:
- Robert Burns: Johnie Lad, Cock Up Your Beaver:
- Morning Poem #39 by Wanda Phipps
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
- Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 113: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 110: Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 10: For shame, deny that thou bear’st love to any by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 107: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 105: Let not my love be called idolatry by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LIV by William Shakespeare
- Silvia by William Shakespeare
- Sigh No More by William Shakespeare
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