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:
- Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way by William Shakespeare
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old warder of these buried bones poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Владимир Набоков – К Родине
- Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet
- For A Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath
- Summer Wind by William Cullen Bryant
- Николай Огарев – Расстались мы
- Николай Глазков – Что ни год, идёт вперёд
- Юлия Друнина – Все грущу о шинели
- Валерий Брюсов – И снова дрожат они, грезы бессильные
- Rutland Gate
- To A Wife, On Mother’s Day by Ronald G. Auguste
- Владимир Маяковский – Тресты
- Adam’s Curse by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Высоцкий – В холода, в холода
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
- Николай Гербель – В дорогу
- Николай Гербель – Ура, объявлена война
- Николай Гербель – Салютовка
- Николай Гербель – Простор
- Николай Гербель – Песнь лейб-гвардии уланского полка
- Николай Гербель – На смерть воробья
- Николай Гербель – Меня преследует какой-то демон злой
- Николай Гербель – Изюмцам
- Николай Гербель – Бокал
- Наум Коржавин – Поэзия не страсть, а власть
- Наум Коржавин – Подмосковная платформа в апреле
- Наум Коржавин – Песня лейб-казачьей сотни
- Наум Коржавин – Перевал
- Наум Коржавин – Памяти Герцена или Баллада об историческом недосыпе
- Наум Коржавин – От судьбы никуда не уйти
- Наум Коржавин – От дурачеств, от ума ли
- Наум Коржавин – Осень в Караганде
- Наум Коржавин – Он собирался многое свершить
- Наум Коржавин – О Господи! Как я хочу умереть
- Наум Коржавин – Никакой истерики
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.