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:
- Telescope by Mark R Slaughter
- That The Night Come by William Butler Yeats
- Summer We Called Home by Vinita Agrawal
- Wilful Missing by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet LXVII by William Shakespeare
- Иван Коневской – Воскресение
- The Five Adorations poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- To the Author of a Poem Entitled Succession poem – Alexander Pope
- Георгий Иванов – Теперь, когда быстрее лавы
- Metamorphoses Of The Moon by Sylvia Plath
- The Coastwise Lights by Rudyard Kipling
- Аля Кудряшева – Ночное
- Валерий Брюсов – К финскому народу
- London, 1802 by William Wordsworth
- He is more than a hero by Sappho
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
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar
- Statistic by Shivam Pandya
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Cloris, it is not thy disdaine by Sidney Godolphin
- Night by Sidney Lanier
- My Springs by Sidney Lanier
- Martha Washington by Sidney Lanier
- Marsh Hymns by Sidney Lanier
- Laus Mariae by Sidney Lanier
- Laughter In The Senate by Sidney Lanier
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.