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:
- In the Mile End Road poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Номер 17
- Not Here by Rumi
- A Prayer For My Son by William Butler Yeats
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- Fareweel To A’Our Scottish Fame by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Случай
- The Baptistry
- Invocation by Siegfried Sassoon
- Pandering by Satish Verma
- ‘They’ by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Willie Brew’d A Peck O’ Maut:
- I have been tricked by flying too close by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Владимир Маяковский – При свободной торговле… (Главполитпросвет №232)
- A Way to Love God by Robert Penn Warren
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
- Илона Грошева – Мой друг Евгений
- Илона Грошева – Мечтается Алине
- Илона Грошева – Любовь две синички на ветке
- Илона Грошева – Когда приходит Дима в парк
- Илона Грошева – Каждый год в себе несет воскресение
- Илона Грошева – Ира
- Иида Дакоцу – Сложено на вечере поэзии хайку в храме Номандзи
- Иида Дакоцу – Сквозь зимнюю мглу
- Иида Дакоцу – Синтоистское святилище у подножия горы в Одани
- Иида Дакоцу – С землею смешались
- Иида Дакоцу – Розу покинув
- Игорь Северянин – Sirel
- Игорь Северянин – Синее
- Игорь Северянин – Симфония
- Игорь Северянин – Шутливая рондель
- Игорь Северянин – Щит-солнце
- Игорь Северянин – Парижские Жоржики
- Игорь Северянин – Памяти В. Башкина
- Игорь Северянин – Памяти О.Н. Чюминой
- Игорь Северянин – Памяти Н.И. Кульбина
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.