A poem by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
(From the French of Rimbaud).
When the child’s forehead, full of torments red,
Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams,
His two big sisters come unto his bed,
Having long fingers, tipped with silvery gleams.
They set him at a casement, open wide
On seas of flowers that stir in the blue airs,
And through his curls, all wet with dew, they slide
Those terrible searching finger-tips of theirs.
He hears them breathing, softly, fearfully,
Honey-sweet ruminations, slow respired:
Then a sharp hiss breaks time and melody–
Spittle indrawn, old kisses new-desired.
Down through the perfumed silences he hears
Their eyelids fluttering: long fingers thrill,
Probing a lassitude bedimmed with tears,
While the nails crunch at every louse they kill.
He is drunk with Languor–soft accordion-sigh,
Delirious wine of Love in Idleness;
Longings for tears come welling up and die,
As slow or swift he feels their magical caress.
A few random poems:
- Death’s Echo by W H Auden
- Race of Veterans. by Walt Whitman
- To a person, they say, frigid, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem: A celle que l’on fit froide by T. Wignesan
- Robert Burns: Lines Written Under The Picture Of The Celebrated Miss Burns:
- Шекспир – А это смерть – Сонет 64
- One Word
- Стефан Малларме – Ее ногтей ожив, что ожил из пароса
- Robert Burns: Presentation Stanzas To Correspondents:
- Girl-Gladness poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Альфред де Мюссе – Что так усиленно сердце больное
- Home Is So Sad by Philip Larkin
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй! крестьянин, помни ты… (Главполитпросвет №43)
- A Pict Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Ирина Гурина – Как пчёлы чуть не поссорились
- Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet
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
- On A Goldfinch, Starved To Death In His Cage by William Cowper
- On A Fowler, By Isidorus by William Cowper
- On A Battered Beauty (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Bath, By Plato by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 9: The Contrite Heart by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 7: Vanity of the World by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 68: Light Shining Out Of Darkness by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 67: Longing To Be With Christ by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 66: I Will Praise The Lord At All Times by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 64: Praise For Faith by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 63: Not Of Works by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 61: The Narrow Way by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 60: Abuse Of The Gospel by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 59: A Living And A Dead Faith by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 57: The New Convert by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 56: Hatred Of Sin by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 55: The Heart Healed And Changed By Mercy by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 54: Love Constraining To Obedience by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 53: My Soul Thirsteth For God by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 52: For The Poor by William Cowper
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

Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 – 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly fifty books—both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.