Go, let the fatted calf be kill’d;
My prodigal’s come home at last,
With noble resolutions fill’d,
And fill’d with sorrow for the past:
No more will burn with love or wine;
But quite has left his women and his swine.
Welcome, ah! welcome, my poor heart!
Welcome! I little thought, I’ll swear
(‘T is now so long since we did part),
Ever again to see thee here:
Dear wanderer! Since from me you fled,
How often have I heard that thou wert dead!
Hast thou not found each woman’s breast
(The lands where thou hast travelled)
Either by savages possest,
Or wild and uninhabited?
What joy couldst take, or what repose,
In countries so unciviliz’d as those?
Lust, the scorching dog-star, here
Rages with immoderate heat;
Whilst pride, the rugged Northern bear,
In others makes the cold too great:
And, where these are temperate known,
The soil’s all barren sand or rocky stone.
When once or twice you chanc’d to view
A rich, well-govern’d heart,
Like China, it admitted you
But to the frontier-part.
From Paradise shut for evermore,
What good is ‘t that an angel kept the door?
Well fare the pride, and the disdain,
And vanities, with beauty join’d;
I ne’er had seen this heart again,
If any fair-one had been kind:
My dove, but once let loose, I doubt
Would ne’er return, had not the flood been out.
A few random poems:
- A Literature Lesson. Sir Patrick Spens in the Eighteenth Century Manner by Sir Walter Raleigh
- phantasm.html
- Robert Burns: Willie Chalmers: Mr. Chalmers, a gentleman in Ayrshire, a particular friend of mine, asked me to write a poetic epistle to a young lady, his Dulcinea. I had seen her, but was scarcely acquainted with her, and wrote as follows:-
- In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin
- Sonnet # 8 by Luis A. Estable
- Омар Хайям – Не смешно ли весь век по копейке копить
- The light from an earthen lamp by Sunil Sharma
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- Cells by Rudyard Kipling
- Quarrel In Old Age by William Butler Yeats
- On A Mischievous Bull, Which The Owner Him Sold At The Author’s Instance by William Cowper
- Fleeting Thoughts by Mac McGovern
- Forfeiture
- The Rabbi’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- It’s no use by Sappho
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
- Fragment – Wee Willie Gray (Song) by Robert Burns
- Farewell to Eliza (Song) by Robert Burns
- On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies by Robert Burns
- Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots by Robert Burns
- Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn by Robert Burns
- Impromptu on Dumourier’s Desertion of the French Republican Army by Robert Burns
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
- Epitaph for Robert Aiken by Robert Burns
- Epistle to a Young Friend by Robert Burns
- Address to Beelzebub by Robert Burns
- A Grace after Meat by Robert Burns
- A Dream by Robert Burns
- A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton by Robert Burns
- A Bard’s Epitaph by Robert Burns
- Zion by Rudyard Kipling
- You Must n’t Swim… by Rudyard Kipling
- With Scindia to Delphi by Rudyard Kipling
- Wilful Missing by Rudyard Kipling
- White Horses by Rudyard Kipling
- When the Great Ark by Rudyard Kipling
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.