A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
In the middle of countries, far from hills and sea,
Are the little places one passes by in trains
And never stops at; where the skies extend
Uninterrupted, and the level plains
Stretch green and yellow and green without an end.
And behind the glass of their Grand Express
Folk yawn away a province through,
With nothing to think of, nothing to do,
Nothing even to look at–never a “view”
In this damned wilderness.
But I look out of the window and find
Much to satisfy the mind.
Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeled
In a motion orderly and staid,
Sweep, as we pass, across the field
Like a drilled army on parade.
And here’s a market-garden, barred
With stripe on stripe of varied greens …
Bright potatoes, flower starred,
And the opacous colour of beans.
Each line deliberately swings
Towards me, till I see a straight
Green avenue to the heart of things,
The glimpse of a sudden opened gate
Piercing the adverse walls of fate …
A moment only, and then, fast, fast,
The gate swings to, the avenue closes;
Fate laughs, and once more interposes
Its barriers.
The train has passed.

A few random poems:
- Two Quits And Drum And Elegy Drinkers
- Burns’s Statue At Irvine poem – Alfred Austin
- Олег Григорьев – Зашли мы к Сизову с приятелем
- Василий Курочкин – Счастливец
- To Mrs Reynolds’ Cat poem – John Keats poems
- Terrible Ted poem – Alexander E. Musset poems | Poetry Monster
- Olney Hymn 53: My Soul Thirsteth For God by William Cowper
- Not out of the running by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- Владимир Набоков – Стансы (Ничем не смоешь подписи косой)
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
- Merrow Down by Rudyard Kipling
- Какое имя чудное Валерия
- Eclipse Of Love
- What’s wrong with volunteering?
- Иван Козлов – Умирающая Эрменгарда
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
- Swing Shift Blues
- Remembering An Account Executive
- Prison Song
- Portrait From The Infantry
- Plague Of Dead Sharks
- On Looking For Models
- On The Civil War On The East Coast Of The United States Of North America 1860 64
- On Hurricane Jackson
- On Being A Householder
- On A Seven Day Diary
- Nomenclature
- Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
- Internal Migration On Being On Tour
- Internal Migration Being Tour
- How We Heard The Name
- Fabrication Of Ancestors
- Elegy
- Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton
- Civil War East Coast United States North America 1860 64
- Against A Sickness To The Female Double Principle God
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
Alcaeus of Mytilene ( c. 625/620 – c. 580 Before Christ) ] was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria.