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:
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Осеннее золото
- Аля Кудряшева – Снова current
- Lover’s Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Маяковский – Живой труп (РОСТА №182)
- Ольга Ермолаева – Напиши мне стишок
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- America by Walter William Safar
- London Poets poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Interregnum by Weldon Kees
- Sonnet: When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be poem – John Keats poems
- Lines to an Old Sweetheart by Robert Burns
- The Blind by Sara Teasdale
- Джон Мильтон – Псалом 8
- Аля Кудряшева – Когда наступает вечер
- To England poem – Alfred Austin
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
- Lorelei by Sylvia Plath
- Little Fugue by Sylvia Plath
- Lesbos by Sylvia Plath
- Leaving Early by Sylvia Plath
- Landowners by Sylvia Plath
- Lament by Sylvia Plath
- Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
- Kindness by Sylvia Plath
- Jilted by Sylvia Plath
- Insomniac by Sylvia Plath
- Incommunicado by Sylvia Plath
- I Want, I Want by Sylvia Plath
- I Am Vertical by Sylvia Plath
- Heavy Woman by Sylvia Plath
- Hardcastle Crags by Sylvia Plath
- Gulliver by Sylvia Plath
- Green Rock, Winthrop Bay by Sylvia Plath
- Gold Mouths Cry by Sylvia Plath
- Goatsucker by Sylvia Plath
- Gigolo by Sylvia Plath
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
