Parabola

Year after year the princess lies asleep

Until the hundred years foretold are done,

Easily drawing her enchanted breath.

Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep,

Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one

Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath.

But when the Destined Lover at last shall come,

For whom alone Fortune reserves the prize

The thorns give way; he mounts the cobwebbed stair

Unerring he finds the tower, the door, the room,

The bed where, waking at his kiss she lies

Smiling in the loose fragrance of her hair.

That night, embracing on the bed of state,

He ravishes her century of sleep

And she repays the debt of that long dream;

Future and Past compose their vast debate;

His seed now sown, her harvest ripe to reap

Enact a variation on the theme.

For in her womb another princess waits,

A sleeping cell, a globule of bright dew.

Jostling their way up that mysterious stair,

A horde of lovers bursts between the gates,

All doomed but one, the destined suitor, who

By luck first reaches her and takes her there.

A parable of all we are or do!

The life of Nature is a formal dance

In which each step is ruled by what has been

And yet the pattern emerges always new

The marriage of linked cause and random chance

Gives birth perpetually to the unforeseen.

One parable for the body and the mind:

With science and heredity to thank

The heart is quite predictable as a pump,

But, let love change its beat, the choice is blind.

‘Now’ is a cross-roads where all maps prove blank,

And no one knows which way the cat will jump.

So here stand I, by birth a cross between

Determined pattern and incredible chance,

Each with an equal share in what I am.

Though I should read the code stored in the gene,

Yet the blind lottery of circumstance

Mocks all solutions to its cryptogram.

As in my flesh, so in my spirit stand I

When does this hundred years draw to its close?

The hedge of thorns before me gives no clue.

My predecessor’s carcass, shrunk and dry,

Stares at me through the spikes. Oh well, here goes!

I have this thing, and only this, to do.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• At The Abbey Theatre by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• At Galway Races by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Are You Content? by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Another Song Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• An Irish Airman Forsees His Death by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• An Image From A Past Life by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• An Appointment by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• An Acre Of Grass by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• All Things Can Tempt Me by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Against Unworthy Praise by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• After Long Silence by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Adam’s Curse by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Woman Homer Sung by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Thought From Propertius by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Stick Of Incense by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Statesman’s Holiday by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Prayer On Going Into My House by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works