Death and Famine on every side
And never a sign of rain,
The bones of those who have starved and died
Unburied upon the plain.
What care have I that the bones bleach white?
To-morrow they may be mine,
But I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!
Cholera, Riot, and Sudden Death,
And the brave red blood set free,
The glazing eye and the failing breath,–
But what are these things to me?
Your breath is quick and your eyes are bright
And your blood is red like wine,
And I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And hold your lips with mine!
I hear the sound of a thousand tears,
Like softly pattering rain,
I see the fever, folly, and fears
Fulfilling man’s tale of pain.
But for the moment your star is bright,
I revel beneath its shine,
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!
And you need not deem me over cold,
That I do not stop to think
For all the pleasure this Life may hold
Is on the Precipice brink.
Thought could but lessen my soul’s delight,
And to-day she may not pine.
For I shall lie in your arms to-night
And close your lips with mine!
I trust what sorrow the Fates may send
I may carry quietly through,
And pray for grace when I reach the end,
To die as a man should do.
To-day, at least, must be clear and bright,
Without a sorrowful sign,
Because I sleep in your arms to-night
And feel your lips on mine!
So on I work, in the blazing sun,
To bury what dead we may,
But glad, oh, glad, when the day is done
And the night falls round us grey.
Would those we covered away from sight
Had a rest as sweet as mine!
For I shall sleep in your arms to-night
And drink your lips like wine!
A few random poems:
- To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty Upon His Translation Of The Popular Errors poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Николай Гумилев – Лаос
- Юлия Друнина – Есть время любить
- Cavalier Tunes: Give a Rouse by Robert Browning
- Fragments by William Butler Yeats
- The Flash Reverses Time poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Late Autumn by William Allingham
- The Shrike by Sylvia Plath
- Английская поэзия. Перси Биши Шелли. К Мэри Шелли. Percy Bysshe Shelley. To Mary Shelley
- A Soldier’s Reprieve by William Topaz McGonagall
- Teach Us To Number Our Days by Rita Dove
- Ballade Of True Wisdom poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The (REAL) Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare by Ross D Tyler
- This is Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Pharaohs, Protests and Public by Sunil Sharma
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
- Valhalla
- The Masks of Love
- The Bull Moose
- The Window
- So Small, So Vital
- If Only
- haiku
- Valhalla
- The Masks of Love
- The Bull Moose
- The Window
- So Small, So Vital
- If Only
- haiku
- A Mysterious Naked Man
- A Certain Kind of Holy Men
- A Life Story
- Two Quits And Drum And Elegy Drinkers
- Two Quits And A Drum And Elegy For Drinkers
- To Sayf Al Dawla
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

Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.