Beneath this gloomy shade,

By Nature only for my sorrows made,

I’ll spend this voyce in crys,

In tears I’ll waste these eyes

By Love so vainly fed;

So Lust of old the Deluge punished.

Ah wretched youth! said I,

“Ah, wretched youth!” twice did I sadly cry:

“Ah, wretched youth!” the fields and floods reply.

When thoughts of Love I entertain,

I meet no words but “Never,” and “In vain.”

“Never” alas that dreadful name

Which fuels the infernal flame:

“Never,” My time to come must waste;

“In vain,” torments the present and the past.

“In vain, in vain!” said I;

“In vain, in vain!” twice did I sadly cry;

“In vain, in vain!” the fields and floods reply.

No more shall fields or floods do so;

For I to shades more dark and silent go:

All this world’s noise appears to me

A dull ill-acted comedy:

No comfort to my wounded sight,

In the suns busy and imperti’nent Light.

Then down I laid my head;

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,

And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

“Ah, sottish Soul” said I,

When back to its cage again I saw it fly;

“Fool to resume her broken chain!

And row her galley here again!”

“Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn’d and destin’d is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be,

Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou should’st come to live it o’re again in me?”

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Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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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 

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

 

 

 

 

 




Abraham Cowley
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