Some blind themselves, ’cause possibly they may
Be led by others a right way;
They build on sands, which if unmov’d they find,
‘T is but because there was no wind.
Less hard ‘t is, not to err ourselves, than know
If our forefathers err’d or no.
When we trust men concerning God, we then
Trust not God concerning men.
Visions and inspirations some expect
Their course here to direct;
Like senseless chemists their own wealth destroy,
Imaginary gold t’ enjoy.
So stars appear to drop to us from sky,
And gild the passage as they fly:
But when they fall, and meet th’opposing ground,
What but a sordid slime is found?
Sometimes their fancies they ‘bove reason set,
And fast, that they may dream of meat;
Sometimes ill spirits their sickly souls delude,
And bastard forms obtrude:
So Endor’s wretched sorceress, although
She Saul through his disguise did know,
Yet, when the devil comes up disguis’d, she cries,
” Behold! the Gods arise.”
In vain, alas! these outward hopes are try’d;
Reason within’s our only guide;
Reason, which (God be prais’d!) still walks, for all
Its old original fall:
And, since itself the boundless Godhead join’d
With a reasonable mind,
It plainly shows that mysteries divine
May with our reason join.
The holy book, like the eighth sphere, does shine
With thousand lights of truth divine:
So numberless the stars, that to the eye
It makes but all one galaxy.
Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas
So vast and dangerous as these,
Our course by stars above we cannot know,
Without the compass too below.
Though Reason cannot through Faith’s mysteries see,
It sees that there and such they be;
Leads to heaven’s door, and there does humbly keep,
And there through chinks and key-holes peep;
Though it, like Moses, by a sad command,
Must not come in to th’ Holy Land,
Yet thither it infallibly does guide,
And from afar ‘t is all descry’d.

A few random poems:
- Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
- Омар Хайям – Не бойтесь дарить согревающих слов
- The Emigrant Mother by William Wordsworth
- Олег Бундур – Наши неприятности
- Вера Павлова – Плачу, потому что не можешь со мной жить
- The Fall of Jock Gillespie by Rudyard Kipling
- Lamia. Part II poem – John Keats poems
- The Best Time Of The Day by Raymond Carver
- Олег Бундур – Не верится
- The Alchemist’s Petition by Vachel Lindsay
- Владимир Высоцкий – Набат
- Владимир Костров – Поэтессе
- The Daguerreotype by William Vaughn Moody
- Иван Елагин – Спрашивал ответа
- By the Spring, at Sunset by Vachel Lindsay
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
- Sonnet LXIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LXIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LXII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LXI by William Shakespeare
- To the Fringed Gentian by William Cullen Bryant
- To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant
- To A Cloud by William Cullen Bryant
- The Yellow Violet by William Cullen Bryant
- The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant
- The Strange Lady by William Cullen Bryant
- The Skies by William Cullen Bryant
- The Living Lost by William Cullen Bryant
- The Gladness of Nature by William Cullen Bryant
- The Death of the Flowers by William Cullen Bryant
- The Death of Lincoln by William Cullen Bryant
- The Constellations by William Cullen Bryant
- Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
- Summer Wind by William Cullen Bryant
- Spring in Town by William Cullen Bryant
- October by William Cullen Bryant
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
Abraham Cowley (1618 – 1667), the Royalist Poet.Poet and essayist Abraham Cowley was born in London, England, in 1618. He displayed early talent as a poet, publishing his first collection of poetry, Poetical Blossoms (1633), at the age of 15. Cowley studied at Cambridge University but was stripped of his Cambridge fellowship during the English Civil War and expelled for refusing to sign the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644. In turn, he accompanied Queen Henrietta Maria to France, where he spent 12 years in exile, serving as her secretary. During this time, Cowley completed The Mistress (1647). Arguably his most famous work, the collection exemplifies Cowley’s metaphysical style of love poetry. After the Restoration, Cowley returned to England, where he was reinstated as a Cambridge fellow and earned his MD before finally retiring to the English countryside. He is buried at Westminster Abbey alongside Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. Cowley is a wonderful poet and an outstanding representative of the English baroque.