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:
- Late, by Myself by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- A little ink more or less! by Stephen Crane
- A Ballad Of The Trees And The Master by Sidney Lanier
- Told by Philip Levine
- Владимир Высоцкий – Милицейский протокол
- Elegy on Stella by Robert Burns
- The Leädy’s Tower by William Barnes
- The Freshness by Rumi
- Олег Григорьев – Был праздник с весельем и танцами
- Asking For Roses by Robert Frost
- Николай Заболоцкий – Портрет
- Nomenclature
- The Love Child by William Barnes
- A Souless Singer poem – Alfred Austin
- Of Love and All by Raja Mannar
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
- The Voice by Sara Teasdale
- The Unseen by Sara Teasdale
- The Unchanging by Sara Teasdale
- The Tree by Sara Teasdale
- The Tree Of Song by Sara Teasdale
- The Treasure by Sara Teasdale
- The Storm by Sara Teasdale
- The Star by Sara Teasdale
- The Song Maker by Sara Teasdale
- The Song For Colin by Sara Teasdale
- The Solitary by Sara Teasdale
- The Silent Battle by Sara Teasdale
- The Shrine by Sara Teasdale
- The Sea Wind by Sara Teasdale
- The Sanctuary by Sara Teasdale
- The Rose by Sara Teasdale
- The Rose And The Bee by Sara Teasdale
- The River by Sara Teasdale
- The Return by Sara Teasdale
- The Princess In The Tower by Sara Teasdale
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.