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:
- Love Sonnet XXXV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Who Knows? by Vachel Lindsay
- And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake
- Robert Burns: On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland: Collecting The Antiquities Of That Kingdom
- The Foreigner poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
- Women’s Song Of The Corn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- from The Cave of Making by W H Auden
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот по борьбе с голодом отчет (Главполитпросвет №320)
- Владимир Маяковский – Гевлок Вильсон
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Олег Григорьев – Я взял бумагу и перо
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Николай Гербель – Введение к поэме
- Coming To This by Mark Strand
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
- Ольга Берггольц – Я тайно и горько ревную
- Ольга Берггольц – Из блокнота сорок первого года
- Ольга Берггольц – Мы предчувствовали полыханье
- Ольга Берггольц – Я иду по местам боев
- Ольга Берггольц – Я говорю
- Ольга Берггольц – Второй разговор с соседкой
- Ольга Берггольц – Встреча
- Ольга Берггольц – Возвращение
- Ольга Берггольц – Вот я выбирала для разлуки
- Ольга Берггольц – Воспоминание (И вот в лицо пахнуло земляникой)
- Ольга Берггольц – В ложе Цимлянского моря
- Ольга Берггольц – В доме Павлова
- Ольга Берггольц – Украина
- Ольга Берггольц – Твоя молодость
- Ольга Берггольц – Триптих 1949 года
- Ольга Берггольц – Тост
- Ольга Берггольц – Таков мой подарок тебе за измену
- Ольга Берггольц – Так еще ни разу не забыла
- Ольга Берггольц – Стихи о ленинградских большевика
- Ольга Берггольц – Старая гвардия
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.