How will our unborn children scoff at us
In the good years to come,
The happier years to come,
Because, like driven sheep, we yielded thus,
Before the shearers dumb.
What are the words their wiser lips will say?
“These men had gained the light;
“These women knew the right;
“They had their chance, and let it slip away.
“They did not, when they might.
“They were the first to hear the gospel preached,
“And to believe therein;
“Yet they remained in sin.
“They saw the promised land they might have reached,
“And dared not enter in.
“They might have won their freedom, had they tried;
“No savage laws forbade;
“For them the way was made.
“They might have had the joys for which they cried
“And yet they shrank, afraid.
“Afraid to face-the martyr’s rack and flame?
“The traitor’s dungeon? Nay-
“Of what their world would say-
“The smile, the joke, the thinnest ghost of blame!
“Lord! Lord! What fools were they!”
And we-no longer actors of the stage
We cumber now-maybe
With other eyes shall see
This wasted chance, and with celestial rage
Cry “O what fools were we!”
A few random poems:
- Василий Жуковский – Мина
- Concert Party by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Café Filtre by Paul Blackburn
- An Acre Of Grass by William Butler Yeats
- Clover by Sidney Lanier
- A HYMN TO VENUS AND CUPID by Robert Herrick
- Владимир Маяковский – Было с белым много дел… (Главполитпросвет №44)
- A Seed by William Allingham
- Вера Павлова – Снежную бабочку-однодневку
- Green Rock, Winthrop Bay by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Набоков – Ut pictura poesis
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Василий Жуковский – Мщение
- Harry Ploughman poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Lie by Sir Walter Raleigh
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
- Fragment – Wee Willie Gray (Song) by Robert Burns
- Farewell to Eliza (Song) by Robert Burns
- On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies by Robert Burns
- Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots by Robert Burns
- Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn by Robert Burns
- Impromptu on Dumourier’s Desertion of the French Republican Army by Robert Burns
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
- Epitaph for Robert Aiken by Robert Burns
- Epistle to a Young Friend by Robert Burns
- Address to Beelzebub by Robert Burns
- A Grace after Meat by Robert Burns
- A Dream by Robert Burns
- A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton by Robert Burns
- A Bard’s Epitaph by Robert Burns
- Zion by Rudyard Kipling
- You Must n’t Swim… by Rudyard Kipling
- With Scindia to Delphi by Rudyard Kipling
- Wilful Missing by Rudyard Kipling
- White Horses by Rudyard Kipling
- When the Great Ark 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

Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.