Here, in her elbow chair, she sits
A soul alert, alive,
A poor old body shrunk and bent-
The queen-bee of the hive.
But hives of bees and hives of men
Obey their several laws;
No fiercely-loving filial throng
This mother-head adores.
This bringer of world-wealth, whereof
None may compute the worth,
Is possibly of no account
To anyone on earth.
Her cap and spectacles, that mean
Dim eyes and scanty hairs,
The humble symbols of her state-
The only crown she wears.
Lacking a kingdom and a court,
A relic of the past,
Almost a cumberer of the ground-
That is our queen at last.
But still not wholly without place,
Nor quite bereft of power;
A useful stopgap-a resource
In many a troubled hour.
She darns the stockings, keeps the house,
The nurseless infant tends,
While the young matrons and the men
Pursue their various ends-
Too keen-set on their great affairs,
Or little plays and pranks,
The things and people of their world,
To give her thought or thanks-
The children on whom all her thought
And time and love were spent
Through half a century of years!
Yet is she well content.
The schooling of those fiery years,
It has not been for nought;
A large philosophy of life
Has self-less service taught.
The outlook from the heights attained
By climbings sore and slow
Discovers worlds of wisdom, hid
From clearest eyes below.
So calmly, in her elbow chair,
Forgotten and alone,
She knits and dreams, and sometimes sighs
But never makes a moan.
Still dwelling with her brood unseen-
Ghosts of a bygone day-
The precious daughter in her grave,
The dear son gone astray-
And others, to whom once she stood
As only light and law,
The near and living, and yet lost,
That need her love no more.
Watching their joyous setting forth
To mingle with their kind,
With scarce a pang, with ne’er a grudge,
At being left behind.
“Let them be young, as I was young,
And happy while they may” . . . .
A dog that waits the night in peace
Since it has had its day.
A few random poems:
- English Poetry. Lucy Maud Montgomery. As the Heart Hopes. Люси Мод Монтгомери.
- A Wife A-Praïs’d by William Barnes
- Comus poem – John Milton poems
- Grace Before Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Kimchi
- Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop by William Butler Yeats
- Late realizations by Tanisha Avarsekar
- And Still to USA they get! by Tom Mukasa
- Наум Коржавин – Легкость
- Омар Хайям – Не бойтесь дарить согревающих слов
- Superficially by Ndue Ukaj
- Robert Burns: Death And Dying Words Of Poor Mailie, The Author’s Only Pet Yowe., The. An Unco Mournfu’ Tale:
- By the Dusk – Ao Entardecer by Soaroir de Campos
- Egotist poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Elegy I. To Charles Deodati (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
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
- women picking edible plants by Raj Arumugan
- what I want to know by Raj Arumugam
- what a poet must do by Raj Arumugam
- was it you, mooon? by Raj Arumugam
- walking with a staff by Raj Arumugam
- The village girl models for the artist, 1904 by Raj Arumugam
- The Discovery of the Kama Sutra by Raj Arumugam
- Taking yourself too seriously by Raj Arumugam
- Sohni and her love Mahinwal by Raj Arumugam
- sadness from the night by Raj Arumugam
- run home, run home butterfly by Raj Arumugam
- Rip van Winkle’s dream by Raj Arumugam
- Revenge of the Ghost of the Betrayed Husband by Raj Arumugam
- Poet Herodia of ancient Pincaeia by Raj Arumugam
- pissed-off cow by Raj Arumugam
- on the edge of the seat by Raj Arumugam
- on our conditioning by Raj Arumugam
- Old Man Poet by Raj Arumugam
- oh no – not another love poem! by Raj Arumugam
- of spiritual matters by Raj Arumugam
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.