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:
- Robert Burns: Sic A Wife As Willie Had:
- Elegy V. Anno Aet. 20. On The Approach Of Spring (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- The Arrival Of The Bee Box by Sylvia Plath
- Sobbing of The Bells, The. by Walt Whitman
- Notes To A Neophyte by Sylvia Plath
- The Settle An’ The Girt Wood Vire by William Barnes
- Ольга Ермолаева – Просила тебя у мертвой и выпросила у мертвой
- A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns: Charlie, He’s My Darling:
- Cuchulan’s Fight With The Sea by William Butler Yeats
- Calypso by W H Auden
- Наум Коржавин – Генерал
- The Virgin Maid of Orleans, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: La Pucelle by T. Wignesan.
- Hark! Hark! The Lark by William Shakespeare
- Civilian and Soldier by Wole Soyinka
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
- Early summer rain by Yosa Buson
- Dawn by Yosa Buson
- Coolness by Yosa Buson
- Calligraphy of geese by Yosa Buson
- Buying leeks by Yosa Buson
- Blown from the west by Yosa Buson
- Blow of an ax by Yosa Buson
- Before the white chrysanthemum by Yosa Buson
- A bat flits by Yosa Buson
- Untitled XXVII by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXVI by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXV by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXIX by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXIV by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXIII by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXII by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XXI by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XX by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XVIII by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XVII by Yunus Emre
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.