“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:
- The Eclipsed Past by Tholana Ashok Chakravarthy
- Владимир Маяковский – Если белогвардейщину не добьем совсем… (РОСТА №148)
- Mary’s Son – A Tale of Christmas – An Inspiring Read
- Владимир Маяковский – Да здравствует неделя ремонта! (РОСТА № 294)
- Sonnet Iii
- Andromeda poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Epigram—The Raptures of Folly by Robert Burns
- The Messiah : A Sacred Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope
- Ок Мельникова – Моя муза любитель блюза
- Come, Let Us Find by William Henry Davies
- Ballade Of Aucassin poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Dead Cities poem – Andrew Lang poems
- To A May Baby by Winifred Mary Letts
- Владимир Высоцкий – О знаках Зодиака
- Learn
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
- Омар Хайям – Думал я, что верны обещанья твои
- Омар Хайям – Друзей поменьше
- Омар Хайям – Друг, умей от пустой суеты отличать
- Омар Хайям – Друг, два понятия должен бы ты затвердить
- Омар Хайям – Долго ль спину придется мне гнуть или нет
- Омар Хайям – Долго ль будешь скорбеть и печалиться, друг
- Омар Хайям – До того, как мы чашу судьбы изопьем
- Омар Хайям – До коих пор униженный позор терпеть
- Омар Хайям – Для тех, кто умирает
- Омар Хайям – День прошел, и о нем позабудь поскорей
- Омар Хайям – День каждый услаждай вином
- Омар Хайям – Даже с самой прекрасной из милых подруг
- Омар Хайям – Дай мне влаги хмельной, укрепляющей дух
- Омар Хайям – Дай коснуться, любимая, прядей густых
- Омар Хайям – Да пребудет вино неразлучно с тобой
- Омар Хайям – Цветам и запахам владеть тобой доколе
- Омар Хайям – Что жизнь
- Омар Хайям – Что я дружу с вином, не отрицаю, нет
- Омар Хайям – Что плоть твоя, Хайям?
- Омар Хайям – Что меня ожидает, неведомо мне
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