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 

• In spring and summer winds may blow by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Proud Word You Never Spoke by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• God Scatters Beauty by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Remain! by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Absence by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Dirce by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Autumn by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Lately our poets by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• F?sulan Idyl by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Finis by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Alciphron and Leucippe by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Acon and Rhodope by Walter Savage Landor by Walter Savage Landor
• Morning Poem #59 by Wanda Phipps by Poetry In English
• Morning Poem #43 by Wanda Phipps by Poetry In English

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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