‘Twas long ago, in the summer-time,
On a day as sad as this,
That I laid my babe in its father’s arms,
And he gave it his farewell kiss;
When the army sail’d from the English shores
In a mist of sun and rain,
To the vine-clad hills and citadels
And the olive groves of Spain.
I set my face to the balmy south,
And listen’d, intent and dumb,
As though a cry from the battle-grounds
On the fragrant wind might come.
I yearn’d for a gleam of the red camp fires
Which burn’d through the watchful nights,
For the shine of the bayonets that clash’d one day
On the dread Albuera heights.
Ah me! And my face cannot turn away,
Though the ashes are on my brow,-
Though the news of the battle came once for all,
And there’s nothing to watch for now!
Though ’tis further away than that far south land
I must look for my dear man’s face,-
Though I know he will never come home again
To the chair in the old house-place!
A few random poems:
- Raise the head, child by Vinko Kalinić
- Abuses and Awards poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- My rains by Vinko Kalinic
- Inscription For A Stone Erected At The Sowing Of A Grove Of Oaks At Chillington, Anno 1791 by William Cowper
- A Dream by Robert Burns
- On the Building of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
- The Ghost by Walter de la Mare
- On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley
- Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Toucan by Shel Silverstein
- Outside the Window, Snow
- Comments: How to Write a Critical Appreciation of a Poem
- Who Goes With Fergus? by William Butler Yeats
- Иван Киуру – Песня моряка
- Firesong by Sylvia Plath
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
- Transient
- To The Serpent
- To The Nameless Soldier
- The Woman And The Flame
- The Wolf039s Postcript To 039little Red Riding Hood039
- The Riddle
- The Queen
- The Poisoned Present
- The Markets Are Down 2 Amp A Quarter
- The Maharishi And The Baby
- The Immigrant
- The Fallen House
- The Poetry That Is Life
- Take My Hands
- Tablet
- Stroll In A Particle
- Stones
- Spanish Banks
- Somber Song
- Poem65
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.