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:
- Федор Сваровский – Небесный гость в четыре лепестка
- Psalm 19: Coeli Enarrant by Sir Philip Sidney
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ее ароматом неслышно ветер повеет
- Борис Заходер – Про пана Трулялинского
- A Theory Of Prosody by Philip Levine
- There Is No Breeze To Cool The Heat Of Love
- Владимир Маяковский – Во весь голос
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Robert Burns: Mr. William Smellie -A Sketch:
- Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Epitaphs Translated From Chiabrera by William Wordsworth
- initial mother’s day eve by matthew scott harris
- Two Years Later by William Butler Yeats
- The Settler by Rudyard Kipling
- Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Coleridge
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
- An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq. by William Cowper
- An Epistle To Joseph Hill, Esq. by William Cowper
- An Epigram From Homer by William Cowper
- An Enigma by William Cowper
- An Attempt At The Manner Of Waller by William Cowper
- An Apology For Not Showing Her What I Had Wrote by William Cowper
- Addressed To Miss Macartney, Afterwards Mrs. Greville, On Reading The Prayer For Indifference by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 5. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 4. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 3. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 2. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 1. by William Cowper
- A Tale. June 1793 by William Cowper
- A Tale, Founded On A Fact, Which Happened In January, 1779 by William Cowper
- A Song : The Sparkling Eye by William Cowper
- A Song : On The Green Margin by William Cowper
- A Riddle by William Cowper
- A Poetical Epistle To Lady Austen by William Cowper
- A Manual, More Ancient Than The Art Of Printing, And Not To Be Found In Any Catalogue by William Cowper
- A Figurative Description Of The Procedure Of Divine Love by William Cowper
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
