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:
- A Song of an Autumn Night. by Wang Wei
- Unapologetic by Vikrant Sapkota
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher’s Tragi-Comedy ‘The Fair Maid of the Inn’ poem – John Keats poems
- Михаил Ломоносов – На Фридриха II, короля Прусского (Сочинение господина Вольтера, переведенное господином Ломоносовым)
- A Poplar and the Moon by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Kellyburn Braes:
- Ancient pornography before pornography. 10 Most Shocking Sex Artifacts From The Ancient World. Amazing works of erotic art of the ancient world.
- Sonnet Iii
- Samson Agonistes poem – John Milton poems
- Wednesday by Marvin Bell
- If Truth in Hearts That Perish poem – A. E. Housman
- Mortality poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Perfect Sacrifice by William Cowper
- Morning-Glory by Siegfried Sassoon
- Lovers on Aran by Seamus Heaney
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
- Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Free the Holy Land — a poem about Palestine
- Sepukku
- Did Shakespeare write his own plays and poems?
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.