Where is the promise of my years;
Once written on my brow?
Ere errors, agonies and fears
Brought with them all that speaks in tears,
Ere I had sunk beneath my peers;
Where sleeps that promise now?
Naught lingers to redeem those hours,
Still, still to memory sweet!
The flowers that bloomed in sunny bowers
Are withered all; and Evil towers
Supreme above her sister powers
Of Sorrow and Deceit.
I look along the columned years,
And see Life’s riven fane,
Just where it fell, amid the jeers
Of scornful lips, whose mocking sneers,
For ever hiss within mine ears
To break the sleep of pain.
I can but own my life is vain
A desert void of peace;
I missed the goal I sought to gain,
I missed the measure of the strain
That lulls Fame’s fever in the brain,
And bids Earth’s tumult cease.
Myself! alas for theme so poor
A theme but rich in Fear;
I stand a wreck on Error’s shore,
A spectre not within the door,
A houseless shadow evermore,
An exile lingering here.
A few random poems:
- Sonnet 129: Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame by William Shakespeare
- Poems On Beauty by Rabindranath Tagore
- Some Clouds by Steve Kowit
- Владимир Высоцкий – Новые левые, мальчики бравые
- Invern poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Dans le Restaurant by T. S. Eliot
- The Danish Boy by William Wordsworth
- Patience poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вот раньше жизнь
- If A Tree Could Wander by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Nevermore, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: Nevermore by T. Wignesan
- Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Passing Of Arthur poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Alone poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Иван Барков – Венерино оружие
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
- Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Free the Holy Land — a poem about Palestine
- Sepukku
- Did Shakespeare write his own plays and poems?
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

Adah Isaacs Menken (1835 – 1868) was an American actress and a performer, who painted painter and wrote a number of poems (31 published so far). She was supposedly the highest earning actress of her time. She was best known for her performance in the hippodrama Mazeppa (with libretto based on Pushkin’s work), it is said that the climax of the spectacle featured her apparently nude and riding a horse on stage. After great success for a few years with the play in New York and San Francisco, she appeared in a production in London and Paris, from 1864 to 1866. She was a friend of Alexander Dumas. Adah Menken died in Paris at the age of 33