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:
- At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats
- With Scindia to Delphi by Rudyard Kipling
- still the leaves fall… and dream by Steve Troyanovich
- New York at Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Врангель (РОСТА №477)
- Jet by Tony Hoagland
- The Pleasures of Memory
- The Request
- About The Nightingale by Samuel Coleridge
- The Proud Farmer by Vachel Lindsay
- The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes
- Владимир Корнилов – Военный оркестр
- Disconnect by Snowdon King
- The Slantèn Light O’ Fall by William Barnes
- Yet Gentle Will the Griffin Be by Vachel Lindsay
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
- Sixteen Dead Men by William Butler Yeats
- Shepherd And Goatherd by William Butler Yeats
- September 1913 by William Butler Yeats
- Sailing To Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- Running To Paradise by William Butler Yeats
- Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
- Responsibilities; Introduction by William Butler Yeats
- The Hosting Of The Sidhe by William Butler Yeats
- The Host Of The Air by William Butler Yeats
- The Heart Of The Woman by William Butler Yeats
- The Hawk by William Butler Yeats
- The Happy Townland by William Butler Yeats
- The Gyres by William Butler Yeats
- The Grey Rock by William Butler Yeats
- The Ghost Of Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
- The Fool By The Roadside by William Butler Yeats
- The Folly Of Being Comforted by William Butler Yeats
- The Fisherman by William Butler Yeats
- The Fish by William Butler Yeats
- The Fiddler Of Dooney by William Butler Yeats
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.