A poem by Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 456 Before Christ )
A GLEAM – a gleam – from Ida’s height,
By the Fire-god sent, it came;
From watch to watch it leapt, that light,
As a rider rode the flame!
It shot through the startled sky,
And the torch of that blazing glory
Old Lemnos caught on high,
On its holy promontory,
And sent it on, the jocund sign,
To Athos, Mount of Jove divine.
Wildly the while, it rose from the isle,
So that the might of the journeying Light
Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine!
Farther and faster speeds it on,
Till the watch that keeps Macistus steep
See it burst like a blazing Sun!
Doth Macistus sleep
On his tower-clad steep?
No! rapid and red doth the wild fire sweep;
It flashes afar on the wayward stream
Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam!
It rouses the light on Messapion’s height,
And they feed its breath with the withered heath.
But it may not stay!
And away – away –
It bounds in its freshening might.
Silent and soon,
Like a broadened moon,
It passes in sheen, Asopus green,
And bursts on Cithaeron gray!
The warder wakes to the Signal-rays,
And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze.
On, on the fiery Glory rode;
Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed!
To Megara’s Mount it came;
They feed it again
And it streams amain-
A giant beard of Flame!
The headland cliffs that darkly down
O’er the Saronic waters frown,
Are passed with the Swift One’s lurid stride,
And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide.
With mightier march and fiercer power
It gained Arachne’s neighboring tower;
Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won,
Of Ida’s fire the long-descended Son!
Bright Harbinger of glory and of joy!
So first and last with equal honor crowned,
In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. –
And these my heralds! – this my SIGN OF PEACE;
Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece
Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy!
A few random poems:
- An Antheme by William Strode
- Владимир Степанов – Шарик (Буква Ш)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мажорный светофор, трёхцветье, трио
- The Pleasures of Memory
- Sparkles from The Wheel. by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: The Winter Of Life:
- Sun Light poem – Ammar Hussain poems | Poems and Poetry
- Алексей Толстой – С тех пор как я один
- A Memory by William Allingham
- Goblin Revel by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Address Of Beelzebub: To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23rd of May last at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. M’Kenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. Macdonald of Glengary to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing-Liberty.
- Childhood by Rainer Maria Rilke
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- In The Bazaars of Hyderabad by Sarojini Naidu
- Николай Карамзин – Меланхолия
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
- A Mathematical Problem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Elegy, Imitated From One Of Akenside’s Blank-Verse Inscriptions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Domestic Peace by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Despair by Samuel Coleridge
- Desire by Samuel Coleridge
- A Day Dream by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Come, come thou bleak December wind (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge
- A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- A Child’s Evening Prayer by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua by Samuel Coleridge
- Answer To A Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Absence: A Farewell Ode On Quitting School For Jesus College by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion by Samuel Coleridge
- With his venom by Sappho
- We put the urn aboard ship by Sappho
- We know this much by Sappho
- We know this much by Sappho
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

Aeschylus (525 Before Christ to 456 B.C.) was an ancient Greek author of Greek tragedy, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academics’ knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them.