How will our unborn children scoff at us
In the good years to come,
The happier years to come,
Because, like driven sheep, we yielded thus,
Before the shearers dumb.
What are the words their wiser lips will say?
“These men had gained the light;
“These women knew the right;
“They had their chance, and let it slip away.
“They did not, when they might.
“They were the first to hear the gospel preached,
“And to believe therein;
“Yet they remained in sin.
“They saw the promised land they might have reached,
“And dared not enter in.
“They might have won their freedom, had they tried;
“No savage laws forbade;
“For them the way was made.
“They might have had the joys for which they cried
“And yet they shrank, afraid.
“Afraid to face-the martyr’s rack and flame?
“The traitor’s dungeon? Nay-
“Of what their world would say-
“The smile, the joke, the thinnest ghost of blame!
“Lord! Lord! What fools were they!”
And we-no longer actors of the stage
We cumber now-maybe
With other eyes shall see
This wasted chance, and with celestial rage
Cry “O what fools were we!”

A few random poems:
- Untitled XII by Yunus Emre
- Robert Burns: On A Suicide:
- little Sara’s sleep by Raj Arumugam
- Владимир Корнилов – Платформа 126-го км
- The Precinct. Rochester poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- There Pass the Careless People poem – A. E. Housman
- Sonnet CLI by William Shakespeare
- Олег Бундур – Колыбельная для мамы
- Laila and the Khalifa by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ballad of the Old Cypress by Tu Fu
- The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies: A Faery Tale — Unfinished poem – John Keats poems
- Юрий Коринец – О стиральной машине
- Олег Чупров – Он впадает в смятенье
- Олег Бундур – Певец Александр Серов
- Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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
- Wind on the Hill by AA Milne
- us_two_by_a_a_milne.html
- twinkletoes.html
- the_morning_walk.html
- the_kings_breakfast.html
- the_dormouse_and_the_doctor.html
- the_christening.html
- rice_pudding.html
- politeness.html
- missing.html
- market_square.html
- lines_and_squares.html
- if_i_were_king.html
- hoppity.html
- happiness.html
- come_out_with_me.html
- buckingham_palace.html
- brownie.html
- at_the_zoo.html
- Water Strider by Aaron Baker
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
Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.