“Sounding through the silent dimness
Where I faint and weary lay,
Spake a poet: ‘I will lead thee
To the land of song to-day.'”
I
O bards! weak heritors of passion and of pain!
Dwellers in the shadowy Palace of Dreams!
With your unmated souls flying insanely at the stars!
Why have you led me lonely and desolate to the Deathless Hill of Song?
You promised that I should ring trancing shivers of rapt melody down to the dumb earth.
You promised that its echoes should vibrate till Time’s circles met in old Eternity.
You promised that I should gather the stars like blossoms to my white bosom.
You promised that I should create a new moon of Poesy.
You promised that the wild wings of my soul should shimmer through the dusky locks of the clouds, like burning arrows, down into the deep heart of the dim world.
But, O Bards! sentinels on the Lonely Hill, why breaks there yet no Day to me?
II
O lonely watchers for the Light! how long must I grope with my dead eyes in the sand?
Only the red fire of Genius, that narrows up life’s chances to the black path that crawls on to the dizzy clouds.
The wailing music that spreads its pinions to the tremble of the wind, has crumbled off to silence.
From the steep ideal the quivering soul falls in its lonely sorrow like an unmated star from the blue heights of Heaven into the dark sea.
O Genius! is this thy promise?
O Bards! is this all?
A few random poems:
- Robert Burns: The Lovely Lass O’ Inverness:
- Владимир Британишский – Богаевский
- Winter dusk at the railway halt by Sunil Sharma
- Baby’s Way by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Moment Of Happiness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Наум Коржавин – Легкость
- The True Lover by A. E. Housman
- Николай Заболоцкий – Офорт
- Fortune-Hunter, The – Canto 1 by William Somervile
- Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day by William Shakespeare
- Lyric of Love to Leah poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
- Valhalla
- Омар Хайям – Если есть у тебя для жилья закуток
- on our conditioning by Raj Arumugam
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
- Robert Burns: The Young Highland Rover:
- Robert Burns: My Peggy’s Charms:
- Robert Burns: Braving Angry Winter’s Storms:
- Robert Burns: The Banks Of The Devon:
- Robert Burns: Epitaph For Mr. W. Cruikshank:
- Robert Burns: A Rose-Bud By My Early Walk:
- Robert Burns: Blythe Was She:
- Robert Burns: On Scaring Some Water-Fowl In Loch-Turit : A wild scene among the Hills of Oughtertyre.
- Robert Burns: The Bonie Lass Of Albany:
- Robert Burns: Theniel Menzies’ Bonie Mary:
- Robert Burns: Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky:
- Robert Burns: Castle Gordon:
- Robert Burns: Strathallan’s Lament:
- Robert Burns: Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands:
- Robert Burns: Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness.: Written with a Pencil on the Spot.
- Robert Burns: The Humble Petition Of Bruar Water: To the noble Duke of Athole.
- Robert Burns: The Birks Of Aberfeldy:
- Robert Burns: Verses Written With A Pencil Over the Chimney-piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.:
- Robert Burns: The Libeller’s Self-Reproof:
- Robert Burns: The Poet’s Reply To The Threat Of A Censorious Critic: My imprudent lines were answered, very petulantly, by somebody, I believe, a Rev. Mr. Hamilton. In a MS., where I met the answer, I wrote below:-
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
Adah Isaacs Menken (1835 – 1868) was an American actress and a performer, who painted painter and wrote a number of poems (31 published so far). She was supposedly the highest earning actress of her time. She was best known for her performance in the hippodrama Mazeppa (with libretto based on Pushkin’s work), it is said that the climax of the spectacle featured her apparently nude and riding a horse on stage. After great success for a few years with the play in New York and San Francisco, she appeared in a production in London and Paris, from 1864 to 1866. She was a friend of Alexander Dumas. Adah Menken died in Paris at the age of 33