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:
- The Winter’s Willow by William Barnes
- Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend by William Shakespeare
- Mungojerrie And Rumpelteazer by T. S. Eliot
- The Times Are Tidy by Sylvia Plath
- In the New Garden in all the Parts. by Walt Whitman
- An Old French Poet by Siegfried Sassoon
- Better Be by Raj Napal
- Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram
- Our Singing Strength by Robert Frost
- Владимир Маяковский – Было с белым много дел… (Главполитпросвет №44)
- Омар Хайям – Куда уйти от пламенных страстей
- Instead of farewell by Vinko Kalinić
- What I Love by Pamela L. Laskin
- Late Evening Song by Weldon Kees
- A Riddle: On A Kiss by William Strode
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
- I am only the house of your beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- I am only the house of your beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- I am a sculptor, a molder of form by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- How Long by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ghazal of Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ghazal of Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ghazal 314 by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ghazal 119 by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Every day I bear a burden by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Every day I bear a burden by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Did I Not Say To You by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Description of Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Confused and Distraught by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Come, Come, Whoever You Are by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Bring Wine by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Book1 Prologue by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Birdsong by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Because I Cannot Sleep by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Be With Those Who Help Your Being by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Be Lost In The Call by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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.