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:
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. My Room. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
- The Mothering Blackness by Maya Angelou
- First Poem by Peter Orlovsky
- Гавриил Державин – Модное остроумие
- That Shadow, my Likeness. by Walt Whitman
- Her Vision In The Wood by William Butler Yeats
- A Prayer On Going Into My House by William Butler Yeats
- Elegy on the Year 1788 by Robert Burns
- Orpheus with his Lute Made Trees by William Shakespeare
- Алексей Жемчужников – Современному гражданину
- Алишер Навои – Когда, тоскуя по тебе
- Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
- The British
- Moonless darkness stands between poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Hanging Tree
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
- Off the Turnpike poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Obligation poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Number 3 on the Docket poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Number 3 on the Docket poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- New York at Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- New York at Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Music poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Music poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Monadnock in Early Spring poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Miscast II poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Miscast II poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Miscast I poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Miscast I poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Mirage poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- March Evening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- March Evening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Malmaison poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Madonna of the Evening Flowers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Loon Point poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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.