A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
As some fond virgin, whom her mother’s care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caused her discontent,
She sigh’d not that they staid, but that she went.
She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashion’d halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning-walks, and prayers three hours a-day:
To part her time ‘twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the ‘squire;
Up to her godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray, for that’s the way to heaven.
Some ‘squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack;
Whose game is whist, whose treat, a toast in sack;
Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking buss, and cries–No words!
Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable,
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are coarse,
And loves you best of all things–but his horse.
In some fair evening, on your elbow laid,
You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recall the fancied scene,
See coronations rise on every green;
Before you pass the imaginary sights
Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter’d knights,
While the spread fan o’ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!
So when your slave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagued with headaches, or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
Just when his fancy paints your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs rush upon my sight;
Vex’d to be still in town, I knit my brow,
Look sour, and hum a tune, as you do now.
A few random poems:
- Why Feed The Early Signs Of Boredom? poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The (REAL) Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare by Ross D Tyler
- Curse of Righteousness by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Psalm 84 poem – John Milton poems
- The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats
- The Habit Of Perfection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Маша
- Михаил Лермонтов – Забудь опять свои надежды
- Old Times by Rixa white
- Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux by Robert Burns
- The Silent Muse poem – Alfred Austin
- Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more by William Shakespeare
- Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 3 – Look how the flower by William Drummond
- Василий Тредиаковский – О коль мне тамо сладка веселия было
- Gus: The Theatre Cat by T. S. Eliot
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
- Tom The Lunatic by William Butler Yeats
- Tom O’Roughley by William Butler Yeats
- To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time by William Butler Yeats
- To Dorothy Wellesley by William Butler Yeats
- To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee by William Butler Yeats
- To A Young Girl by William Butler Yeats
- To A Young Beauty by William Butler Yeats
- To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine by William Butler Yeats
- To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing by William Butler Yeats
- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
- Poems by William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Book of Thel
- Written In March by William Wordsworth
- To the City of London by William Dunbar
- To a Lady by William Dunbar
- The Sirens’ Song by William Browne
- The Rose by William Browne
- The Quarry by William Vaughn Moody
- The Daguerreotype by William Vaughn Moody
- The Blues by William Matthews
- Song by William Browne
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

Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) was a a post-Restoration English poet and satirist. He is a poet of the (British) Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents.