A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food,
And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,
That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,
Behind the cloud topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky.
A few random poems:
- Owen Aherne And His Dancers by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Помогите цинготным детям (Главполитпросвет №274)
- My Search by Renu Ayyar
- When The Two Sisters Go To Fetch Water by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: Tam Samson’s Elegy: When this worthy old sportman went out, last muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian’s phrase, “the last of his fields,” and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his elegy and epitaph.-R.B., 1787.
- Robert Burns: The Raptures Of Folly:
- Psalm Three by Mahmoud Darwish
- Closed Path by Rabindranath Tagore
- Анатолий Жигулин – Обвал
- Олег Сердобольский – Черная считалка
- Олег Бундур – Что будет, если
- Quicksand Years. by Walt Whitman
- Epigram to Miss Jean Scott by Robert Burns
- In A Light Time by Philip Levine
- Олег Бундур – Вопросы
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
- From Milton: And did those feet by William Blake
- Blind Man’s Buff by William Blake
- XVI: Some Verses: Of Conquerouris by William Alexander
- XV: Some Verses: Ciprian’s Smyling by William Alexander
- XIV: Some Verses: To Mr. Edward Allane by William Alexander
- XIII: Some Verses: On A Report On The Death Of The Author by William Alexander
- A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth
- A Sketch by William Wordsworth
- A Poet’s Epitaph by William Wordsworth
- A Poet! He Hath Put His Heart To School by William Wordsworth
- A Parsonage In Oxfordshire by William Wordsworth
- A Morning Exercise by William Wordsworth
- A Jewish Family In A Small Valley Opposite St. Goar, Upon The Rhine by William Wordsworth
- A Gravestone Upon The Floor In The Cloisters Of Worcester Cathedral by William Wordsworth
- A Fact, And An Imagination, Or, Canute And Alfred, On The Seashore by William Wordsworth
- A Complaint by William Wordsworth
- XII: Some Verses: Sonnet, To The Authour by William Alexander
- XI: Some Verses: To His Worthy Friend Master Walter Quin by William Alexander
- X: Some Verses: To His Most Affectionate Friend Mr. Lithgow by William Alexander
- VII: Some Verses: On The Death of John Murray by William Alexander
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.