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 Маяковский – Дела вузные, хорошие и конфузные
- Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Высоцкий – Охота на кабанов
- A Stone Is Nobody’s by Russell Edson
- Spanish Johnny by Willa Sibert Cather
- Robert Burns: Elegy On Captain Matthew Henderson: A Gentleman who held the Patent for his Honours immediately from Almighty God.
- Goliath Of Gath by Phillis Wheatley
- Written Upon A Blank Leaf In “The Complete Angler.” by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: Rattlin’, Roarin’ Willie:
- Heart of God by Vachel Lindsay
- Wherever You Go, There You Are by Ryssel Guzman
- Champagne 1914 15
- Владимир Маяковский – Слегка нахальные стихи товарищам из ЭМКАХИ
- A Clear Midnight. by Walt Whitman
- Crossing the Frontier
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
- Twenty-Four Hokku On A Modern Theme poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Travelling Bear poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Towns in Colour poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To-Morrow To Fresh Woods And Pastures New poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To A Husband poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Travelling Bear poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Swans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Starling poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Pond poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Poet poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Letter poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Great Adventure Of Max Breuck poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Garden By Moonlight poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Dinner-Party poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Cremona Violin poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Country House poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Artist poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Prayer For Lightning poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Prayer For A Profusion Of Sunflowers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Orange Of Midsummer poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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.