On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other’s lips, but never our souls may meet.
For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,
To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.
And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,
The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.
As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,
Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;
So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free
As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.
So sweet you are, with your tinted cheeks and your small caressive hands,
What if I carried you home with me, where our Golden Temple stands?
Yet, this were folly indeed; to bind, in fetters of permanence,
A passing dream whose enchantment charms because of its trancience.
Life is ever a slave to Time; we have but an hour to rest,
Her steam is up and her lighters leave, the vessel that takes me west;
And never again we two shall meet, as we chance to meet to-night,
On the Junk, whose painted eyes gaze forth, in desolate want of sight.
And what is love at its best, but this? Conceived by a passing glance,
Nursed and reared in a transient mood, on a drifting Sea of Chance.
For rudderless craft are all our loves, among the rocks and the shoals,
Well we may know one another’s speech, but never each other’s souls.
Give here your lips and kiss me again, we have but a moment more,
Before we set the sail to the mast, before we loosen the oar.
Good-bye to you, and my thanks to you, for the rest you let me share,
While this night drifted away to the Past, to join the Nights that Were.
A few random poems:
- Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Four Corners by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- Robert Burns: The Author’s Earnest Cry And Prayer: To the Right Honourable and Honourable Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons.
- The Poet poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Misty Morning by Mary Etta Mietcalf
- houses.html
- Between the Dusk of a Summer Night by William Ernest Henley
- Stanzas Written In My Pocket Copy Of Thomson’s “Castle Of Indolence” by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Степанов – Мишка (Буква М)
- Aunt Dorothys Lecture
- from The Tenth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Новогоднее видение
- If I could tell you by W. H. Auden
- My November Guest by Robert Frost
- The Instructor by Rudyard Kipling
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
- Владимир Маяковский – Нынче бар в России нет… (Главполитпросвет №37)
- Владимир Маяковский – Новый враг
- Владимир Маяковский – Новые силы в III Интернационале!.. (РОСТА №891)
- Владимир Маяковский – Новогодние поздравления (РОСТА №704)
- Владимир Маяковский – Notre-Dame
- Владимир Маяковский – Нормализованная гайка (РОСТА № 171)
- Владимир Маяковский – Номер 17
- Владимир Маяковский – Никчемное самоутешение
- Владимир Маяковский – Ни знахарство, ни благодать бога в болезни не подмога
- Владимир Маяковский – Ни на Европу не надейся, ни на прокукиш, надейся только на свои руки (Главполитпросвет №343)
- Владимир Маяковский – Нетрудно, ландышами дыша
- Владимир Маяковский – Неразбериха
- Владимир Маяковский – Непобедимое оружие
- Владимир Маяковский – Ненавистью древней… (РОСТА № 198)
- Владимир Маяковский – Негритоска Петрова
- Владимир Маяковский – Неделя охраны труда (РОСТА № 317)
- Владимир Маяковский – Неделя фронта (РОСТА)
- Владимир Маяковский – Нечеловеческой силы требовала война… (Главполитпросвет №285)
- Владимир Маяковский – Небылицы в лицах
- Владимир Маяковский – Небесный чердак
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

Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.