When I kneel down the dawn is only breaking;
Sleep fetters still the brown wings of the lark;
The wind blows pure and cool, for day is waking,
But stars are scattered still about the dark.
With open lattice, looking out and praying,
Ere yet the toil and trouble must be faced,
I see a silvery glimmer straying, straying,
To where the faint grey sky-line can be traced:
I see it slowly deepen, broaden, brighten,
With soft snow-fringes sweeping to the land;
The sheeny distance clear, and gleam, and whiten;
The cool cliff-shadows sharpen on the sand.
Some other sea the sunlight is adorning,
But mine is fair ‘neath waning stars and moon.
O friendly face!-O smile that comes at morning,
To shine through all the frowns that come at noon!
A beautiful wet opal-pale tints filling
A thousand shifting shallows-day at length.
The sweet, salt breeze, like richest wine, is thrilling
My drowsy heart and brain with life and strength.
I hear the voice of waters-strong waves dashing
Their white crests on the brown weed-sprinkled sod;
I hear the soft, continuous, measured plashing-
The pulse that vibrates from the heart of God,-
The long wash of the tide upon the shingle,
The rippling ebb of breakers on the shore,
Wherewith my prayers are fain to blend and mingle-
Whereto I set my dreams for evermore.
I hear the lap and swirl, I hear the thunder
In the dark grotto where the children play,-
Where walls to keep the sea and cave asunder,
And frail shell towers, were reared but yesterday.
The flood has filled my soul, and it is sweeping
My foolish stones and pebbles out to sea,
And floating in strange riches for my keeping,-
O friend! O God! I owe my best to Thee.
The best of every day, its peace and beauty,
From Thy mysterious treasure-house is drawn;
Thou teachest me the grace of life and duty,
When we two walk together in the dawn.
A few random poems:
- There is a Candle in your Heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Twilight poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Edge by Sylvia Plath
- Leave This by Rabindranath Tagore
- Eve by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Казалось
- Before This Little Gift Was Come by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Testimony by Seamus Heaney
- Testing The Bomb by Shel Silverstein
- Николай Гумилев – Людям будущего
- Robert Burns: I Reign In Jeanie’s Bosom:
- Full of Life, Now. by Walt Whitman
- Orchard by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Юрий Верховский – Судьба с судьбой
- Two Months by Rudyard Kipling
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
- Asparagus – A Tanka Poem
- Missile – A Tanka Poem
- The Language of William Dunbar
- A Ballad of Our Lady (Ave Maria, gracia plena)
- A Quick Ode to Spam, a Poem about Spam
- The Amendis to the Telyouris and Sowtaris for the Turnament maid on thame
- Ode to the Bat , a Sonnet
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Lost poem – Alfred Austin
- Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin
- Let The Weary World Go Round poem – Alfred Austin
- Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
- Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin
- Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin
- In Sutton Woods poem – Alfred Austin
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

Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.