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:
- A dragonfly that committed suicide by Preeth Nambiar
- Song—Beware o’ Bonie Ann by Robert Burns
- Стефан Малларме – Милостыня
- Ольга Седакова – Преданья о подвижниках похожи
- Вера Павлова – В ранец тетрадки собраны
- Ring Of Grass by Shel Silverstein
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- Concert Party by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ay, workman, make me a dream, by Stephen Crane
- Hunting Song by William Somervile
- Виктор Гончаров – Скоро, скоро я домой поеду
- The Motherless Child by William Barnes
- Николай Заболоцкий – Весна в лесу
- Belts by Rudyard Kipling
- The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux poem – A. E. Housman
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

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.