The sins of Youth are hardly sins,
So frank they are and free.
‘T is but when Middle-age begins
We need morality.
Ah, pause and weigh this bitter truth:
That Middle-age, grown cold,
No comprehension has of Youth,
No pity for the Old.
Youth, with his half-divine mistakes,
She never can forgive,
So much she hates his charm which makes
Worth while the life we live.
She scorns Old Age, whose tolerance
And calm, well-balanced mind
(Knowing how crime is born of chance)
Can pardon all mankind.
Yet she, alas! has all the power
Of strength and place and gold,
Man’s every act, through every hour,
Is by her laws controlled.
All things she grasps with sordid hands
And weighs in tarnished scales.
She neither feels, nor understands,
And yet her will prevails!
Cold-blooded vice and careful sin,
Gold-lust, blind selfishness,–
The shortest, cheapest way to win
Some, worse than cheap, success.
Such are her attributes and aims,
Yet meekly we obey,
While she to guide and order claims
All issues of the day.
You seek for honour, friendship, truth?
Let Middle-age be banned!
Go, for warm-hearted acts, to Youth;
To Age,–to understand!

A few random poems:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня о конькобежце на короткие дистанции, которого заставили бежать на длинную
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- Composed After A Journey Across The Hambleton Hills, Yorkshire by William Wordsworth
- Epistle to Davie, A Brother Poet by Robert Burns
- Владимир Степанов – Зима
- “When I Have Borne In Memory” by William Wordsworth
- A Love By The Sea by William Ernest Henley
- Владимир Высоцкий – Грусть моя, тоска моя
- Ode on the Departed Regency Bill by Robert Burns
- Falling Asleep by Siegfried Sassoon
- Николай Гумилев – Она говорила
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid by William Shakespeare
- Lover’s Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book by Rabindranath Tagore
- Telescopes In The Square by Graham Rowlands
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мы бдительны, мы тайн не разболтаем
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
- Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost
- Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
- Evening in a Sugar Orchard by Robert Frost
- Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
- Dust in the Eyes by Robert Frost
- Devotion by Robert Frost
- Design by Robert Frost
- Desert Places by Robert Frost
- Come In by Robert Frost
- Christmas Trees by Robert Frost
- But Outer Space by Robert Frost
- Brown’s Descent by Robert Frost
- Bond and Free by Robert Frost
- Blue-Butterfly Day by Robert Frost
- Bereft by Robert Frost
- Atmosphere by Robert Frost
- Asking For Roses by Robert Frost
- An Old Man’s Winter Night by Robert Frost
- An Encounter by Robert Frost
- An Empty Threat by Robert Frost
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.