A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
Strophe I.
Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught;
Where heav’nly visions of Plato fir’d,
And Epicurus lay inspir’d!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses’ shades.
Antistrophe I.
Oh heav’n-born sisters! source of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;
Who lead fair Virtue’s train along,
Moral Truth, and mystic Song!
To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?
Say, will you bless the bleak Atlantic shore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?
Strophe II.
When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;
Perhaps ev’n Britain’s utmost shore,
Shall cease to blush with strager’s gore.
See Arts her savage sons control,
And Athens rising near the pole!
‘Till some new Tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from this land.
Antistrophe II.
Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball?
Freedom and Arts together fall;
Fools grant whate’er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are slaves.
Oh curs’d effects of civil hate,
In ev’ry age, in ev’ry state!
Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.
A few random poems:
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- Наум Коржавин – Генерал
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- Road-Song of the Bandar-Log by Rudyard Kipling
- On Going Unnoticed by Robert Frost
- Федор Сологуб – Под кустами
- A Dialogue Of Self And Soul by William Butler Yeats
- hoppity.html
- Анатолий Жигулин – Кладбище в Заполярье
- Владимир Степанов – Почему не спят котята?
- Forgetting Someone by Yehuda Amichai
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- Epigram on Politics by Robert Burns
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 Incurious Bencher by William Somervile
- The Hip by William Somervile
- The Happy Lunatic by William Somervile
- The Frog’s Choice by William Somervile
- The Dog and the Bear by William Somervile
- The Devil Outwitted by William Somervile
- The Coquette by William Somervile
- The Captive Trumpeter by William Somervile
- The Busy Indolent by William Somervile
- The Bowling-Green by William Somervile
- The Bald-Pated Welshman and the Fly by William Somervile
- Song by William Somervile
- On Presenting to a Lady a White Rose and a Red on the Tenth of June by William Somervile
- On Miranda’s Leaving the Country by William Somervile
- Mahomet Ali Beg; Or, the Faithful Minister of State by William Somervile
- Liberty, and Love; or, the Two Sparrows by William Somervile
- Hunting Song by William Somervile
- Hudibras and Milton Reconciled by William Somervile
- Hobbinol; or The Rural Games by William Somervile
- Hobbinol; or The Rural Games – Canto 3 by William Somervile
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

Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) was a a post-Restoration English poet and satirist. He is a poet of the (British) Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents.