The Bayadere

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays

More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid

By the light veils they burned and blushed amid,

Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways,

And there was invitation in her voice

And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes,

As though above the gates of Paradise

Fair verses bade, Be welcome and rejoice!

O’er rugs where mottled blue and green and red

Blent in the patterns of the Orient loom,

Like a bright butterfly from bloom to bloom,

She floated with delicious arms outspread.

There was no pose she took, no move she made,

But all the feverous, love-envenomed flesh

Wrapped round as in the gladiator’s mesh

And smote as with his triple-forked blade.

I thought that round her sinuous beauty curled

Fierce exhalations of hot human love, —

Around her beauty valuable above

The sunny outspread kingdoms of the world;

Flowing as ever like a dancing fire

Flowed her belled ankles and bejewelled wrists,

Around her beauty swept like sanguine mists

The nimbus of a thousand hearts’ desire.

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Poems in English 

• Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Portrait of a Boy by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Portrait of a Baby by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Nos Immortales by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Music by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• May Morning by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Lonely Burial by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Elegy for an Enemy by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Dedication by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Colors by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Before an Examination by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• A Minor Poet by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• The Grammar Lesson by Steve Kowit by Poetry In English
• The Convoy by Stephenie Tucker by Poetry In English

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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.

 

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