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:
- Гавриил Державин – Анакреоново удовольствие
- Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend by William Shakespeare
- Вера Павлова – Подарил мне жизнь
- If by Rudyard Kipling
- Омар Хайям – Этот мастер всевышний
- Burning Oneself Out
- Catharina : The Second Part. On Her Marriage To George Courtenay, Esq. by William Cowper
- Full Moon by Walter de la Mare
- The Emotion Line by Rita Odessa Villaruel
- A New Song by Thomas Chatterton
- Robert Burns: Scots’ Prologue For Mr. Sutherland: On his Benefit-Night, at the Theatre, Dumfries.
- This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful. by Walt Whitman
- Music poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Calligraphy of geese by Yosa Buson
- The Isle Of Portland poem – A. E. Housman
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 Disquieting Muses by Sylvia Plath
- The Dispossessed by Sylvia Plath
- The Detective by Sylvia Plath
- The Death Of Myth-Making by Sylvia Plath
- The Dead by Sylvia Plath
- The Couriers by Sylvia Plath
- The Courage Of Shutting-Up by Sylvia Plath
- The Companionable Ills by Sylvia Plath
- The Colossus by Sylvia Plath
- The Burnt-Out Spa by Sylvia Plath
- The Bull Of Bendylaw by Sylvia Plath
- The Beggars by Sylvia Plath
- The Beekeeper’s Daughter by Sylvia Plath
- The Bee Meeting by Sylvia Plath
- The Beast by Sylvia Plath
- The Babysitters by Sylvia Plath
- The Arrival Of The Bee Box by Sylvia Plath
- The Applicant by Sylvia Plath
- Temper Of Time by Sylvia Plath
- Tale Of A Tub 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