A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn’d, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent’ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen’rous breast?
Chorus.
Love’s purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand’ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen’s kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.
Semichorus.
Oh source of ev’ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev’rence, hope, and love.
Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love’s unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.
A few random poems:
- The Bean Vield by William Barnes
- Alone by Siegfried Sassoon
- Furious Wounds by Satish Verma
- The Recall by Rudyard Kipling
- Peddler Road Flyover by Vinita Agrawal
- Long For This World by Sophie Hannah
- Robert Burns: Epistle To A Young Friend:
- Metaphysical View by Satish Verma
- Everybody’s Makin’ It Big But Me by Shel Silverstein
- “From the man whom I love, though my heart I disguise,” by Tobias Smollett
- The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket by Robert Lowell
- The Allies poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
- English Poetry. Richard Hovey. John Keats. Ричард Хави.
- Ярослав Смеляков – Три витязя
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
- Woken Up By Beautiful Dreams
- The Poet Angels Who Came To Dinner
- The Nomad039s Vision Ode To A Skylark Dressed In Black
- The Man That Poetry Made
- Power Of Thought
- Once Was A Singer For God Remembering Nekia
- My Aroma
- Lost Love Is Never Lost
- Holiday Letter For A Poet Gone To War
- Gratitudes Of A Dozen Roses
- Every Hour Henceforth
- Cell Mate
- Calling The Spirits
- Angel Of Christmas Love Shining Bright
- Angel Of Better Days To Come
- All Night In Savannah The Wind Wrote Poetry
- The Solitary Oak On Mount Kremlin Bicetre
- The Prison Of The Past
- The Dead Woman
- Pathos Is The Skyward Tanka
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
