A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
A small circus is amazing;
It’s for kids who are merry and bright;
There a girl and a boy’re gazing
At the ladies, kings, and droll sprites.
… And that terrible music cries over our lot,
Despondently howls the bow…
The scary sprite has captured a tiny tot,
With cranberry juice dripping down.
– The boy –
He’ll be rescued from a new burst of anger
With a wave of a delicate hand.
There – lights coming on,
See their growing reflection?
See the smoke? See the torch on the stand?
This must be the royal procession.
– The girl –
Come now, why all this teasing talk?
This is the devil’s escort…
In the daylight the queen goes out for a walk,
Head to toe with rosebuds decorated.
And escort of knights hold the train of her frock
And jingle their swords, all excited.
Suddenly the clown twists in the lights
Screaming, «Please help me! Please help!
I am bleeding red cranberry juice!
I have bandages made of rags!
I have a paper helmet on my head!
I’ve a wooden sword in my hand!»
Here both the girl and the boy broke into tears,
And the merry street circus shut its doors.
A few random poems:
- Felix Randal poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- A Brook in the City by Robert Frost
- Adieu to Belshanny by William Allingham
- Олег Сердобольский – Угадай, в какой руке
- Ready for Retirement by Mike Yuan
- The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling
- Behold, from the land of the farther suns by Stephen Crane
- The Road by Siegfried Sassoon
- Last Battle Cid
- Numbers and the Bible
- Алексей Толстой – Уж ты нива моя, нивушка
- Maudlin by Sylvia Plath
- Homosexuality by Spencer Reece
- Palm Trees By The Sea
- Johnny Rich by Will McKendree Carleton
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
- The Instructor by Rudyard Kipling
- The Hyaenas by Rudyard Kipling
- The Houses by Rudyard Kipling
- The Heritage by Rudyard Kipling
- The Greek National Anthem by Rudyard Kipling
- The Grave of the Hundered Head by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gipsy Trail by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gift of the Sea by Rudyard Kipling
- The Galley-Slave by Rudyard Kipling
- The Floods by Rudyard Kipling
- The Flight by Rudyard Kipling
- The First Chantey by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fires by Rudyard Kipling
- The Female of the Species by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fall of Jock Gillespie by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fairies’ Siege by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fabulists by Rudyard Kipling
- The Explorer by Rudyard Kipling
- The Explanation by Rudyard Kipling
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.