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:
- Turns by Tony Harrison
- When To The Attractions Of The Busy World by William Wordsworth
- Константин Бальмонт – Мы шли в золотистом тумане
- Зинаида Александрова – Утки, беленькие грудки
- Иван Киуру – Звездный полет
- Landowners by Sylvia Plath
- Mannahatta. by Walt Whitman
- A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- 25 Minutes To Go by Shel Silverstein
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Пируя праздник возвращенья
- Шекспир – У сердца с глазом тайный договор – Сонет 47
- The Littlle Black-Eyed Rebel by Will McKendree Carleton
- Олег Григорьев – Зашли мы к Сизову с приятелем
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Звездочет
- Epistle to a Young Friend by Robert Burns
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
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Danced by Vachel Lindsay
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- Here’s to the Mice! by Vachel Lindsay
- Heart of God by Vachel Lindsay
- Genesis by Vachel Lindsay
- General William Booth Enters into Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Galahad, Knight Who Perished by Vachel Lindsay
- Foreign Missions in Battle Array by Vachel Lindsay
- Factory Windows are Always Broken by Vachel Lindsay
- Euclid by Vachel Lindsay
- Epitaphs For Two Players by Vachel Lindsay
- Epilogue by Vachel Lindsay
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Vachel Lindsay
- Eden in Winter by Vachel Lindsay
- Drying Their Wings by Vachel Lindsay
- Darling Daughter of Babylon by Vachel Lindsay
- Concerning Emperors by Vachel Lindsay
- Caught in a Net by Vachel Lindsay
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.