The fish around her crowded, as they do
To the false light that treacherous fisher shew,
And all with as much ease might taken be,
As she at first took me;
For ne’er did light so clear
Among the waves appear,
Though every night the sun himself set there.
Why to mute fish shouldst thou thyself discover
And not to me, thy no less silent lover?
As some from men their buried gold commit
To ghosts, that have no use of it;
Half their rich treasures so
Maids bury; and for aught we know,
(Poor ignorants!) They’re mermaids all below.
The amorous waves would fain about her stay,
But still new amorous waves drive them away,
And with swift current to those joys they haste
That do as swiftly waste:
I laugh’d the wanton play to view;
But ‘t is, alas! at land so too,
And still old lovers yield the place to new.
Kiss her, and as you part, you amorous waves
(My happier rivals, and my fellow-slaves)
Point to your flowery banks, and to her shew
The good your bounties do;
Then tell her what your pride doth cost,
And how your use and beauty’s lost,
When rigorous winter binds you up with frost.
Tell her, her beauties and her youth, like thee,
Haste without stop to a devouring sea;
Where they will mix’d and undistinguish’d lie
With all the meanest things that die;
As in the ocean thou
No privilege dost know
Above th’ impurest streams that thither flow.
Tell her, kind flood! When this has made her sad,
Tell her there’s yet one remedy to be had;
Show her how thou, though long since past, dost find
Thyself yet still behind:
Marriage (say to her) will bring
About the self-same thing.
But she, fond maid, shuts and seals-up the spring.
A few random poems:
- Summa poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On John Dove, Innkeeper:
- Анатолий Жигулин – Начало поэмы
- Омар Хайям – Куда уйти от пламенных страстей
- Thinking For Berky by William Stafford
- Untitled XXII by Yunus Emre
- Нина Воронель – Попытка отчаяния
- Doomes-Day: The Fifth Houre by William Alexander
- I closed my eyes to creation by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ольга Седакова – Прибавления к “Старым песням”
- Opifex by Thomas Edward Brown
- The Bee Meeting by Sylvia Plath
- A winning lot
- Sonnet 05
- Robert Burns: Lines Written In Friars’-Carse Hermitage:
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

Abraham Cowley (1618 – 1667), the Royalist Poet.Poet and essayist Abraham Cowley was born in London, England, in 1618. He displayed early talent as a poet, publishing his first collection of poetry, Poetical Blossoms (1633), at the age of 15. Cowley studied at Cambridge University but was stripped of his Cambridge fellowship during the English Civil War and expelled for refusing to sign the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644. In turn, he accompanied Queen Henrietta Maria to France, where he spent 12 years in exile, serving as her secretary. During this time, Cowley completed The Mistress (1647). Arguably his most famous work, the collection exemplifies Cowley’s metaphysical style of love poetry. After the Restoration, Cowley returned to England, where he was reinstated as a Cambridge fellow and earned his MD before finally retiring to the English countryside. He is buried at Westminster Abbey alongside Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. Cowley is a wonderful poet and an outstanding representative of the English baroque.