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:
- Владимир Костров – Не трогайте жанр
- Disconnect by Snowdon King
- Praise O’ Do’set by William Barnes
- word of God by Raj Arumugam
- Two Songs From A Play by William Butler Yeats
- from The Cave of Making by W H Auden
- The Judge by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: A Poet’s Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter: The First Instance That Entitled Him To The Venerable Appellation Of Father
- A Scot To Jeanne D’Arc poem – Andrew Lang poems
- My Mask poem – Amy Haritha Suseel poems | Poems and Poetry
- The New World by Philip Levine
- Today by Satish Verma
- Василий Курочкин – Мы всё смешное косим, косим
- Robert Burns: Had I The Wyte? She Bade Me:
- The Indian Upon God by William Butler Yeats
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
- A Cliff Dwelling by Robert Frost
- A Brook in the City by Robert Frost
- A Boundless Moment by Robert Frost
- The Easter Egg Hunt by Roger Turner
- Nikolai Gumilev –
- The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Come, My Beloved, Hear From Me by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Come, Here Is Adieu To The City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Come From The Daisied Meadows by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Before This Little Gift Was Come by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Away With Funeral Music by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Auntie’s Skirts by Robert Louis Stevenson
- At the Sea-Side by Robert Louis Stevenson
- At Last She Comes by Robert Louis Stevenson
- As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long by Robert Louis Stevenson
- As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Armies in the Fire by Robert Louis Stevenson
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.