Though all thy gestures and discourses be
Coin’d and stamp’d by modesty;
Though from thy tongue ne’er slipp’d away
One word which nuns at th’ altar might not say;
Yet such a sweetness, such a grace,
In all thy speech appear,
That what to th’ eye a beauteous face,
That thy tongue is to th’ ear:
So cunningly it wounds the heart,
It strikes such heat through every part,
That thou a tempter worse than Satan art.
Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracks have been
So much as of original sin,
Such charms thy beauty wears as might
Desires in dying confess’d saints excite:
Thou, with strange adultery,
Dost in each breast a brothel keep;
Awake all men do lust for thee,
And some enjoy thee when they sleep.
Ne’er before did woman live,
Who to such multitudes did give
The root and cause of sin, but only Eve.
Though in thy breast so quick a pity be,
That a fly’s death ‘s a wound to thee;
Though savage and rock-hearted those
Appear, that weep not ev’n Romance’s woes;
Yet ne’er before was tyrant known,
Whose rage was of so large extent;
The ills thou dost are whole thine own;
Thou ‘rt principal and instrument:
In all the deaths that come from you,
You do the treble office do
Of judge, of torturer, and of weapon too.
Thou lovely instrument of angry Fate,
Which God did for our faults create!
Thou pleasant, universal ill,
Which, sweet as health, yet like a plague dost kill!
Thou kind, well-natur’d tyranny!
Thou chaste committer of a rape!
Thou voluntary destiny,
Which no man can, or would, escape!
So gentle, and so glad to spare,
So wondrous good, and wondrous fair,
(We know) ev’n the destroying-angels are.
A few random poems:
- Niagara by Vachel Lindsay
- He Reproves The Curlew by William Butler Yeats
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 2. by William Cowper
- 1954 by Sharon Olds
- Василий Курочкин – Раздумье
- The Bridge of Sighs by Thomas Hood
- On Going Unnoticed by Robert Frost
- Валерий Брюсов – Филлида
- Robert Burns: The Banks Of Nith:
- Fortune-Hunter, The – Canto 1 by William Somervile
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- Николай Карамзин – Дурной вкус
- Invitation To The Redbreast by William Cowper
- Venus Transiens poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) by William Matthews
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
- Even if I don’t hear your voice, I know by Vinko Kalinic
- Don’t know the answer by Vinko Kalinic
- Dog’s love by Vinko Kalinić
- Dear Traffic Signal by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Confessions of a Software Engineer by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Black song about a black woman and red wine by Vinko Kalinić
- Birthday party blunder by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Beautiful Stranger by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Ballad about a stinking flower by Vinko Kalinic
- Altar amid the sea by Vinko Kalinic
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Eclogue VIII by Virgil
- Eclogue VI by Virgil
- Eclogue IV by Virgil
- Eclogue III by Virgil
- Eclogue V by Virgil
- Ecologue IX by Virgil
- Ecologue I by Virgil
- Eclogue X by Virgil
- You by Vladimir Mayakovsky
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.