“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:
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time by William Shakespeare
- Alchemy by Sara Teasdale
- Lover’s Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Orlando Furioso Canto 23 by Ludovico Ariosto
- София Парнок – Тихо плачу и пою
- Stray Colors by Satish Verma
- The Sun Was Slumbering in the West by Thomas Hood
- Николай Языков – Элегия (Есть много всяких мук – и много я их знаю)
- Наум Коржавин – От дурачеств, от ума ли
- Diffugere Nives poem – A. E. Housman
- Recollection
- The Lost Star — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Child by Sylvia Plath
- Михаил Кузмин – Возможно ль: скоро четверть века
- Cloris, it is not thy disdaine by Sidney Godolphin
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
- Address to the Toothache by Robert Burns
- Address to the shade of Thomson by Robert Burns
- Address to the Deil by Robert Burns
- Address to Edinburgh by Robert Burns
- Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns
- Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle by Robert Burns
- Adam Armour’s Prayer by Robert Burns
- A Winter Night by Robert Burns
- A Vision by Robert Burns
- A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc. by Robert Burns
- A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
- A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish by Robert Burns
- A Prayer in the Prospect of Death by Robert Burns
- A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter by Robert Burns
- A New Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock by Robert Burns
- A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death by Robert Burns
- A Grace before Dinner by Robert Burns
- A Grace after Dinner by Robert Burns
- News, lassies, news (Song) by Robert Burns
- Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet (Song) by Robert Burns
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