A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
Dear, damn’d distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I’ll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,
Ye harlots, sleep at ease!
Soft B– and rough C–s adieu,
Earl Warwick made your moan,
The lively H–k and you
May knock up whores alone.
To drink and droll be Rowe allow’d
Till the third watchman’s toll;
Let Jervas gratis paint, and Frowde
Save three-pence and his soul.
Farewell, Arbuthnot’s raillery
On every learned sot;
And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.
Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips, and fat Johnson.
Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage:
And Homer (damn him!) calls.
The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax’s urn:
And not one Muse of all he fed
Has yet the grace to mourn.
My friends, by turns, my friends confound,
Betray, and are betrayed:
Poor Y–r’s sold for fifty pound,
And B–ll is a jade.
Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?
Or follow girls, seven hours in eight?
I us’d but once a week.
Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake, alive.
Solicitous for others’ ends,
Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington’s delicious meal,
For salads, tarts, and pease!
Adieu to all, but Gay alone,
Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.
A few random poems:
- Robert Burns: The Kirk Of Scotland’s Alarm:
- We Are As The Flute by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Welshnut Tree by William Barnes
- We’re Late by W H Auden
- Жан де Лафонтен – Орел и Сова
- Степан Щипачев – Не громок, не бросок мой стих
- Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took by William Shakespeare
- Anarchy by Satish Verma
- Li Po, the moon and me by Raj Arumugam
- Николай Языков – Песни (Мы любим шумные пиры)
- If Truth in Hearts That Perish poem – A. E. Housman
- Calidore: A Fragment poem – John Keats poems
- To a Lady and Her Children by Phillis Wheatley
- In Paths Untrodden. by Walt Whitman
- Peaceful Battles by Shekhar Srinivasan
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
- Three Songs Of Zahir U Din
- Thoughts Mahomed Akram
- Though In My Firmament Thou Wilt Not Shine
- This Month The Almonds Bloom At Kandahar
- There Is No Breeze To Cool The Heat Of Love
- The Window Overlooking The Harbour
- The Tom Toms
- The Temple Dancing Girl
- The Teak Forest
- The Singer
- The River Of Pearls At Fez Translation
- The Rice Was Under Water
- The Rice Boat
- The Regret Of The Ranee In The Hall Of Peacocks
- The Rao Of Ilore
- The Plains
- The Net Of Memory
- The Masters
- The Lute Player Of Casa Blanca
- The Lament Of Yasmini The Dancing Girl
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.