Beneath this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I’ll spend this voyce in crys,
In tears I’ll waste these eyes
By Love so vainly fed;
So Lust of old the Deluge punished.
Ah wretched youth! said I,
“Ah, wretched youth!” twice did I sadly cry:
“Ah, wretched youth!” the fields and floods reply.
When thoughts of Love I entertain,
I meet no words but “Never,” and “In vain.”
“Never” alas that dreadful name
Which fuels the infernal flame:
“Never,” My time to come must waste;
“In vain,” torments the present and the past.
“In vain, in vain!” said I;
“In vain, in vain!” twice did I sadly cry;
“In vain, in vain!” the fields and floods reply.
No more shall fields or floods do so;
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world’s noise appears to me
A dull ill-acted comedy:
No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the suns busy and imperti’nent Light.
Then down I laid my head;
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
“Ah, sottish Soul” said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly;
“Fool to resume her broken chain!
And row her galley here again!”
“Fool, to that body to return
Where it condemn’d and destin’d is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be,
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou should’st come to live it o’re again in me?”
A few random poems:
- Владимир Вишневский – Тем, что в женщине разбудишь
- To a Commencement of Scoundrels by Samuel Hazo
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope
- Олег Бундур – Учительница открыла журнал
- Hyperion. Book II poem – John Keats poems
- Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Green Grow The Rashes by Robert Burns
- Eyes Look Into The Well by W H Auden
- London Poets poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- “My soul is sunk in all–suffusing shame” poem – Alfred Austin
- Love In Reverse by Talha Jafri
- Apostroph. by Walt Whitman
- First Sight by Philip Larkin
- Baptistry
- Meeting and Passing by Robert Frost
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
- Lines on the Fall of Fyers by Robert Burns
- Lines on the Author’s Death by Robert Burns
- Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer by Robert Burns
- Lines on Fergusson, the Poet by Robert Burns
- Lines Inscribed under Fergusson’s Portrait by Robert Burns
- Lines Inscribed in a Lady’s Pocket Almanack by Robert Burns
- Lament For Culloden by Robert Burns
- John Barleycorn: A Ballad by Robert Burns
- John Barleycorn by Robert Burns
- John Anderson by Robert Burns
- Inscription to Miss Graham of Fintry by Robert Burns
- Inscription to Jessie Lewars by Robert Burns
- Inscription to Chloris by Robert Burns
- inscription on Mr. Syme’s crystal goblet by Robert Burns
- Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet by Robert Burns
- Inscription at Friars’ Carse Hermitage by Robert Burns
- Inscribed on a Work of Hannah More’s by Robert Burns
- Impromptu on Mrs. Riddell’s Birthday by Robert Burns
- Impromptu on Carron Iron Works by Robert Burns
- Impromptu Lines to Captain Riddell by Robert Burns
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.