Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather,
But a captive woman, made for love – no mate, no nest has she.
In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together,
And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see:
Nature’s sacramental feast for these – an empty board for me.
I, a young maid once, an old maid now, deposed, despised, forgotten –
I, like them have thrilled with passion and have dreamed of nuptial rest,
Of the trembling life within me of my children unbegotten,
Of a breathing new-born body to my yearning bosom prest,
Of the rapture of a little soft mouth drinking at my breast.
Time, that heals so many sorrows, keeps mine ever freshly aching;
Though my face is growing furrowed and my brown hair turning white,
Still I mourn my irremediable loss, asleep or waking –
Still I hear my son’s voice calling “mother” in the dead of night,
And am haunted by my girl’s eyes that will never see the light.
O my children that I might have had! my children, lost for ever!
O the goodly years that might have been – now desolate and bare!
O malignant God or Fate, what have I done that I should never
Take my birthright like the others, take the crown that women wear,
And possess the common heritage to which all flesh is heir?

A few random poems:
- Prayers by Rainbow Reed
- Flight To Nature by William Gilmore Simms
- Олег Бундур – Родня
- What’s wrong with volunteering?
- Станислав Востоков – Стой, кто идёт
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 56. Томас Мур.
- Between the Showers poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk
- Sorry by Tom Mukasa
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced by William Shakespeare
- To E. poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Dews of Silence by Raju Baruah
- Ольга Берггольц – Как на озёрном хуторе
- The Princess (part 6) poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
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
- One Year by Sharon Olds
- Crab by Sharon Olds
- A Week Later by Sharon Olds
- 1954 by Sharon Olds
- Winter by Shaunna Harper
- Twilight by Shaunna Harper
- The Other Half by Shaunna Harper
- Saison Noir by Shaunna Harper
- River by Shaunna Harper
- Prelude by Shaunna Harper
- Passing by Shaunna Harper
- My Modern Surrealist Mind by Shaunna Harper
- Metamorphosis by Shaunna Harper
- La Fleur by Shaunna Harper
- Keeping the Dawn by Shaunna Harper
- In Measures by Shaunna Harper
- Hidebound by Shaunna Harper
- For Someone, Somewhere, In Relation by Shaunna Harper
- Ellipsis by Shaunna Harper
- Chanson D’Amour by Shaunna Harper
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.