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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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 

• At the Galleria Shopping Mall by Tony Hoagland by Poetry In English
• America by Tony Hoagland by Poetry In English
• A Color of the Sky by Tony Hoagland by Poetry In English
• To His Mistress In Absence by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• “What weeping, or what dewfall,” by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• “Once we were happy” by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• “O you, far colder, whiter” by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• “Life of my life, you seem to me” by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• “Hedge, that divides the lovely” by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 07 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 02 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 01 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso
• Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso by Torquato Tasso

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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.

 

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