He lurks among the reeds, beside the marsh,
Red oleanders twisted in His hair,
His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh,
Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare.
The green and stagnant waters lick His feet,
And from their filmy, iridescent scum
Clouds of mosquitoes, gauzy in the heat,
Rise with His gifts: Death and Delirium.
His messengers: They bear the deadly taint
On spangled wings aloft and far away,
Making thin music, strident and yet faint,
From golden eve to silver break of day.
The baffled sleeper hears th’ incessant whine
Through his tormented dreams, and finds no rest
The thirsty insects use his blood for wine,
Probe his blue veins and pasture on his breast.
While far away He in the marshes lies,
Staining the stagnant water with His breath,
An endless hunger burning in His eyes,
A famine unassuaged, whose food is Death.
He hides among the ghostly mists that float
Over the water, weird and white and chill,
And peasants, passing in their laden boat,
Shiver and feel a sense of coming ill.
A thousand burn and die; He takes no heed,
Their bones, unburied, strewn upon the plain,
Only increase the frenzy of His greed
To add more victims to th’ already slain.
He loves the haggard frame, the shattered mind,
Gloats with delight upon the glazing eye,
Yet, in one thing, His cruelty is kind,
He sends them lovely dreams before they die;
Dreams that bestow on them their heart’s desire,
Visions that find them mad, and leave them blest,
To sink, forgetful of the fever’s fire,
Softly, as in a lover’s arms, to rest.
A few random poems:
- Wolves by Mary Bone
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Калиф и раб
- The Emigrant
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight by William Shakespeare
- Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee poem – Zameer Careem poems | Poetry Monster
- To Arms! poem – Alfred Austin
- May Magnificat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Robert Burns: Here’s To Thy Health:
- Юнна Мориц – Комарово
- Иосиф Бродский – Бюст Тиберия
- Tell me not here, it needs not saying poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- February by Thomas Chatterton
- Better Not Ask Me by Shel Silverstein
- Puck’s Song 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
- Sandys Ghost ; A Proper Ballad on the New Ovid’s Metamorphosis poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Prayer of St. Francis Xavier poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On a certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On the Countess of Burlington Cutting Paper poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On Seeing the Ladies Crux-Easton Walk in the Woods by the Grotto. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On Mr. Gay poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On His Grotto at Twickenham poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On Colley Cibber poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On Certain Ladies poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On a Fan of the Author’s Design poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- On a Certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Ode on Solitude poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Occasioned By Some Verses of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Macer : A Character poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Lines on Curll poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Lines Written in Windsor Forest poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Inscription on a Grotto, the Work of Nine Ladies. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- In Imitation of Spenser : The Alley poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
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.