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:
- When I Came Last to Ludlow poem – A. E. Housman
- Daniel Dwithen, The Wise Chap by William Barnes
- Cell Mate
- The River Has Its Memories by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Devotion by Robert Frost
- ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES by Abraham Cowley
- Blank by Nizar Sartawi
- Robert Burns: The Toadeater:
- I am content here by Raj Arumugam
- Василий Жуковский – Цветок
- Владимир Корнилов – Двое
- Love Lightly
- Addiction by Walid Saba
- Омар Хайям о Боге и религии: Рубаи, стихи Хайяма про Бога – Poetry Monster
- I Havent Betrayed You My Hometown
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
- At the Galleria Shopping Mall by Tony Hoagland
- America by Tony Hoagland
- A Color of the Sky by Tony Hoagland
- To His Mistress In Absence by Torquato Tasso
- “What weeping, or what dewfall,” by Torquato Tasso
- “Once we were happy” by Torquato Tasso
- “O you, far colder, whiter” by Torquato Tasso
- “Life of my life, you seem to me” by Torquato Tasso
- “Hedge, that divides the lovely” by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 07 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 02 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 01 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso
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.