A poem by Alistar Crowley (1875-1947)
I to the open road,
You to the hunchbacked street –
Which of us two
Shall the earlier rue
That day we chanced to meet?
I with a heart that’s sound,
You with sick fancies of pain –
Which of us two
Would the earlier rue
If we chanced to meet again?
I jingle homely lore,
While you rhyme is with kiss –
Which of us two
Will the earlier rue
The love of the Hoylake Miss?
Not I the first to go,
Nor I the first to deceive –
Which of us two
Shall the the earliest rue
Our garden of make-believe?
You were a Chinese god,
I an offering fair,
As we entered the
Garden of Allah,
To sing our holy prayer.
Entered with hearts bowed low,
Yet I heard a voice that cried:
For he is the god of the
Sacrifice,
You are the crucified.
It was all make-believe,
A foolish game of play,
Our garden of Allah
A drawing-room,
Our Chinese god of clay.
Strings of bruises for pearls,
Tears for forget-me-nots,
And a deadly pain
Of the sickening shame
Watching the fading spots.
As quickly they faded,
The heart of me faded as well,
Until nothing is left
Of my garden,
But a soul sunk to hell.
Hail!
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaire,
No more together we’ll enter the
Enchanted garden of make-believe,
Nor my sad soul listen while thine deceive.
No more you’ll be the God of Sacrifice,
Nor I the crucified.
Ah, Garden of Allah -how bitter sweet
Thy fruit. Why breakest thou the heart?
Why spoilest thou the soul with notes
From thy golden lute?
Lo! our garden a common room
Our Chinese god burnt clay, and
The singing of verses a funeral hymn
That awakes with awakening day.
‘Twas all such a meaningless play,
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaitre.
Hail!
Poet, take my hand -we’ll walk
Still a little way.
I’ll not desert thee at the close of day,
I, too, must pray.
A beggar asking alms of passers-by,
Does not refuse a drink to one who’s dry
That once by him did lie.
Poet, come close -before I leave for aye
Take thou my hand, we’ll walk still
A little way.
One garment covered both to keep us warm,
What harmed the one, was’t not the other’s harm?
Close clasped, one single form.
Was it not meant of aye?
Poet, take thou my hand -we’ll still
Walk a little way.
A few random poems:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я был слесарь шестого разряда
- Олег Бундур – Настроение
- A Death Song by William Morris
- A Voice From The West poem – Alfred Austin
- Salve! by Thomas Edward Brown
- death039s_claim.html
- Владимир Маяковский – Товарищ! Фронту помог ты… (РОСТА №444)
- This Evening Also by Paul Celan
- Psalm 9 by Mahmoud Darwish
- Amnesiac by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet CLIV by William Shakespeare
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso
- Владимир Маяковский – Подлиза
- A Love By The Sea by William Ernest Henley
- Валерий Брюсов – К.Д. Бальмонту (Как прежде, мы вдвоем, в ночном кафе. За входом)
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
- Why England Is Conservative poem – Alfred Austin
- Who Would Not Die For England! poem – Alfred Austin
- “When the reaper lays the sickle by ” poem – Alfred Austin
- When Runnels Began To Leap And Sing poem – Alfred Austin
- ” When in the long–drawn avenues of Thought” poem – Alfred Austin
- “What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far” poem – Alfred Austin
- “`Were I a Poet, I would dwell” poem – Alfred Austin
- Since We Must Die poem – Alfred Austin
- Wardens Of The Wave poem – Alfred Austin
- To The Autumn Wind poem – Alfred Austin
- To Robert Louis Stevenson poem – Alfred Austin
- To Ireland poem – Alfred Austin
- To England poem – Alfred Austin
- To Ellen Terry poem – Alfred Austin
- To Beatrice Stuart–Wortley Ætat poem – Alfred Austin
- To Arms! poem – Alfred Austin
- To Arms! (II) poem – Alfred Austin
- To Alfred Tennyson poem – Alfred Austin
- “‘Tis because, though in dusky bower” poem – Alfred Austin
- Time’s Weariness poem – Alfred Austin
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
