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:
- Here’s to the Mice! by Vachel Lindsay
- The Huntsmen by Walter de la Mare
- In September poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stanzas Written In My Pocket Copy Of Thomson’s “Castle Of Indolence” by William Wordsworth
- Come, Rest in this Bosom by Thomas Moore
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня про белого слона
- Ode In Memory Of The American Volunteers Fallen For France
- Владимир Маяковский – Разговор с товарищем Лениным
- Алексей Ржевский – Портрет
- Стефан Малларме – Вздох
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- The Oak Of Guernica Supposed Address To The Same by William Wordsworth
- Rule I By Eric Mottram Stop Writing Literature You Garrulous Indian
- Алексей Жемчужников – Умные политики
- Lover’s Gifts LII: Tired of Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
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
- To A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
- Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
- The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters
- The Moralists by Yvor Winters
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- The Fable by Yvor Winters
- The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters
- Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- Much In Little by Yvor Winters
- Moonrise by Yvor Winters
- John Sutter by Yvor Winters
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
- An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
- Alone by Yvor Winters
- A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
- The Tavern by Willa Cather
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.