A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
I.
To one fair lady out of Court,
And two fair ladies in,
Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,
And wit and love no sin!
Come, these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,
To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.
With a fa, la, la.
II.
What passes in the dark third row,
And what behind the scene,
Couches and crippled chairs I know,
And garrets hung with green;
I know the swing of sinful hack,
Where many damsels cry alack.
With a fa, la, la.
III.
Then why to Courts should I repair,
Where’s such ado with Townsend?
To hear each mortal stamp and swear,
And every speech with “Zounds” end;
To hear them rail at honest Sunderland,
And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland.
With a fa, la, la.
IV.
Alas! like Schutz I cannot pun,
Like Grafton court the Germans;
Tell Pickenbourg how slim she’s grown,
Like Meadows run to sermons;
To court ambitious men may roam,
But I and Marlbro’ stay at home.
With a fa, la, la.
V.
In truth, by what I can discern,
Of courtiers, ‘twixt you three,
Some wit you have, and more may learn
From Court, than Gay or Me:
Perhaps, in time, you’ll leave high diet,
To sup with us on milk and quiet.
With a fa, la, la.
VI.
At Leicester Fields, a house full nigh,
With door all painted green,
(A Milliner, I mean);
There may you meet us three to three,
For Gay can well make two of Me.
With a fa, la, la.
VII.
But should you catch the prudish itch,
And each become a coward,
Bring sometimes with you lady Rich,
And sometimes mistress Howard;
For virgins, to keep chaste, must go
Abroad with such as are not so.
With a fa, la, la.
VIII.
And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends;
God send the king safe landing;
And make all honest ladies friends
To armies that are standing;
Preserve the limits of those nations,
And take off ladies’ limitations.
With a fa, la, la.

A few random poems:
- My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance, 1981 by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
- An Ode To Antares
- Алексей Плещеев – Смотрю на нее и любуюсь
- Praises to my motherland ! by Neelam Sinha
- Come, Here Is Adieu To The City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Василий Курочкин – Юмористическим чутьем
- Lineage by Ted Hughes
- In A Cuban Garden by Sara Teasdale
- A Winter Night by Sara Teasdale
- Olney Hymn 4: Jehovah-Nissi: The Lord My Banner by William Cowper
- Epistle to the Rev. John M’Math by Robert Burns
- In the Home Stretch by Robert Frost
- Алексей Толстой – Сватовство
- Zellen Woone’s Honey To Buy Zome’hat Sweet by William Barnes
- Impromptu on Dumourier’s Desertion of the French Republican Army by Robert Burns
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 97: How like a winter hath my absence been by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXVI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLVI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLIX by William Shakespeare
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