A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
The river stretched. It flows, idly grieves,
And washes both banks.
In steppe, above light clay of cliffs
Rinks mourn in ranks.
O Russia! Dear wife! With clearness and pain
We see the lengthy way!
It sent an arrow of ancient Tartar reign;
In breast it lay.
The way through steppes and an incessant plight,
Through your, o Russia, lot!
And alien dark and dark of night
I fear not.
Let be the night. We’ll ride and light in gloom
Camp-fires late.
The holy flag will flash in fume,
And Khan’s steel blade …
And endless battle! We only dream of peace
Through blood and dust …
The mare of steppes flies on and flees,
And tramples the grass …
There’s no end! The miles and cliffs flash past
Stop crazy flood!
The frightened clouds go fast,
Sun sets in blood!
Sun sets in blood! Blood streams from heart away!
O cry, my heart …
There’s no peace! Through steppe the bay
Prolongs the flight!

A few random poems:
- A Statesman’s Holiday by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Нынче бар в России нет… (Главполитпросвет №37)
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Черное озеро
- Владимир Гиляровский – Чем дальше в море
- A Snowy Night by William Barnes
- The Year’s Awakening by Thomas Hardy
- My Mother by Mahmoud Darwish
- Hail, Twilight, Sovereign Of One Peaceful Hour by William Wordsworth
- Empty Pages by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Red Planet Haiku by Thomas J Camp
- Валерий Брюсов – Где-то
- Владимир Костров – Выходец из волости лесистой
- I’ve Lived To See Desire Vanish poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Федор Сваровский – Об удивительном
- Аля Кудряшева – Ночное
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
- Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles by W H Auden
- Voltaire At Ferney by W H Auden
- Underneath an Abject Willow by W H Auden
- This Lunar Beauty by W H Auden
- They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden
- The Waters by W H Auden
- The Wanderer by W H Auden
- The Two by W H Auden
- The Riddle by W H Auden
- The Quest by W H Auden
- The Quest XII (Vocation) by W H Auden
- The Novelist by W H Auden
- The Labyrinth by W H Auden
- The Hidden Law by W H Auden
- The Geography of the House by W H Auden
- The Dream by W H Auden
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden
- Taller To-day by W H Auden
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
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
Alexander Blok (1880-1921), also Block, was a Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic. A classic of Russian literature.