“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:
- Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Маяковский – Чтоб из недели “Заботы о достоянии” толку выйти, вот так, товарищи, агитацию ведите (Главполитпросвет №374)
- Epigram—Thanks for a National Victory by Robert Burns
- Song of the Broad-Axe. by Walt Whitman
- Resolute by Stephenie Tucker
- Straw sandal half sunk by Yosa Buson
- Николай Заболоцкий – Засуха
- The Explorer by Rudyard Kipling
- The Heart That Is Pining by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- The Circus Animals’ Desertion by William Butler Yeats
- The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
- To Somebody Out There by Vashti Trisawati Abhidana
- Dirge of the Three Queens by William Shakespeare
- Psalm 84 poem – John Milton poems
- Drum-Taps. by Walt Whitman
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
- A Zong Of Harvest Hwome by William Barnes
- A Wife A-Praïs’d by William Barnes
- A-Haulen O’ The Corn by William Barnes
- A Good Father by William Barnes
- A Bit O’ Fun by William Barnes
- Invictus by William Ernest Henley
- Barmaid by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade of Dead Actors by William Ernest Henley
- Youth And Beauty by William Carlos Williams
- Heel & Toe To The End by William Carlos Williams
- from Book I, Paterson by William Carlos Williams
- Flowers By The Sea by William Carlos Williams
- Dedication For A Plot Of Ground by William Carlos Williams
- Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams
- Complete Destruction by William Carlos Williams
- Complaint by William Carlos Williams
- Children’s Games by William Carlos Williams
- Blizzard by William Carlos Williams
- Berket And The Stars by William Carlos Williams
- Aux Imagistes by William Carlos Williams
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