Be still, my heart, and listen,
For sweet and yet acute
I hear the wistful music
Of Khristna and his flute.
Across the cool, blue evenings,
Throughout the burning days,
Persuasive and beguiling,
He plays and plays and plays.
Ah, none may hear such music
Resistant to its charms,
The household work grows weary,
And cold the husband’s arms.
I must arise and follow,
To seek, in vain pursuit,
The blueness and the distance,
The sweetness of that flute!
In linked and liquid sequence,
The plaintive notes dissolve
Divinely tender secrets
That none but he can solve.
Oh, Khristna, I am coming,
I can no more delay.
“My heart has flown to join thee,”
How can my footsteps stay?
Beloved, such thoughts have peril;
The wish is in my mind
That I had fired the jungle,
And left no leaf behind,–
Burnt all bamboos to ashes,
And made their music mute,–
To save thee from the magic
Of Khristna and his flute.
A few random poems:
- Огюст Барбье – Мельпомена
- Николай Языков – Е. А. Свербеевой (Мысль неразгульного поэта)
- Need by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- Алексей Плещеев – Твоя любовь мне утешенье
- Flowers notebook
- And because Love battles by Pablo Neruda
- Ольга Седакова – Госпожа и служанка
- Planetarium
- Владимир Корнилов – Молодая поэзия
- The Sequel to a Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Waldenses by William Wordsworth
- Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost
- Юрий Коринец – Старухи
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Владимир Корнилов – Чтение
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 – Озерный край
- Ольга Берггольц – Ответ
- Ольга Берггольц – От сердца к сердцу
- Ольга Берггольц – Осень (Мне осень озёрного края)
- Ольга Берггольц – Она дарить любила
- Ольга Берггольц – Огонь, и воду, и медные трубы
- Ольга Берггольц – Обещание
- Ольга Берггольц – О, наверное, он не вернётся
- Ольга Берггольц – О, где ты запела
- Ольга Берггольц – О да, простые, бедные слова
- Ольга Берггольц – Новогодний тост
- Ольга Берггольц – Ни до серебряной и ни до золотой
- Ольга Берггольц – Не знаю, не знаю, живу
- Ольга Берггольц – Не сына, не младшего брата
- Ольга Берггольц – Не может быть, чтоб жили мы напрасно
- Ольга Берггольц – Наш сад
- Ольга Берггольц – Нам от тебя теперь не оторваться
- Ольга Берггольц – Надежда
- Ольга Берггольц – На Ивана-пьющего
- Ольга Берггольц – Моя медаль
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.