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:
- Chanting the Square Deific. by Walt Whitman
- Альфред де Мюссе – Прости
- Quatrain 1693 (Farsi with English Translation) by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- To My Brother by Siegfried Sassoon
- Николай Заболоцкий – Осенний клен
- The humble earthen lamp by Sunil Sharma
- For Mêng Hao-jan by Wang Wei
- Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known by William Wordsworth
- Carry Her Over the Water by W H Auden
- Robert Burns: On Capt. Lascelles:
- Borderland poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Луговской – Обращение
- Вера Павлова – По счету
- Гавриил Державин – Надежда на бога
- Her Epitaph by William Strode
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
- Lovesong by Ted Hughes
- Lineage by Ted Hughes
- How To Paint A Water Lily by Ted Hughes
- Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes
- God’s Grandeur by Ted Hughes
- Full Moon and Little Frieda by Ted Hughes
- Examination at the Womb-Door by Ted Hughes
- Earth-Moon by Ted Hughes
- Crow’s Nerve Fails by Ted Hughes
- Crow’s Fall by Ted Hughes
- Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days by Ted Hughes
- A Woman Unconscious by Ted Hughes
- Weak by Tanisha Avarsekar
- The battle of fire by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Taketh away by Tanisha Avarsekar
- So tired by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Silent consolation by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Life a chess game by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Life a battlefield by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Late realizations by Tanisha Avarsekar
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.