A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
We waited commonly for sleep or even death.
The instances were wearisome as ages.
But suddenly the wind’s refreshing breath
Touched through the window the Holy Bible’s pages:
An old man goes there; who’s now all white-haired;
With rapid steps and merry eyes, alone,
He smiles to us, and often calls with hand,
And leaves us with a gait, that is well-known.
And suddenly we all, who watched the old man’s track,
Well recognized just him who now lay before us,
And turning in a sudden rapture back,
Beheld a corpse with eyes forever closed …
And it was good for us the soul’s way to trace,
And, in the leaving one, to find the glee it’s forming.
The time had come. Recall and love in grace,
And celebrate another house-warming!
A few random poems:
- Elegy Written At Hotwells, Bristol by William Lisle Bowles
- To A Cloud by William Cullen Bryant
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, by William Wordsworth
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth by William Shakespeare
- Ок Мельникова – Гасите звёзды
- Николай Карамзин – Филлиде
- How To Achieve Self-Realization, The Mother of All Knowledge?
- Владимир Маяковский – О том, как у Керзона с обедом разрасталась аппетитов зона
- Ольга Высотская – Первые заморозки
- Sonnet CXXIII by William Shakespeare
- At First. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
- When the Lad for Longing Sigh poem – A. E. Housman
- William Stanley Merwin – William Stanley Merwin
- A Walk After Dark by W H Auden
- Invictus by William Ernest Henley
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
- Владимир Высоцкий – Тоска немая гложет иногда
- Владимир Высоцкий – То бишь о чём
- Владимир Высоцкий – Тексты для капустника к 5-летию Театра на Таганке
- Владимир Высоцкий – Татуировка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Там были генеральши, были жёны офицеров
- Владимир Высоцкий – Так оно и есть
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сыт я по горло, до подбородка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Схвати судьбу за горло, словно посох
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свой остров
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свет потушите, вырубите звук
- Владимир Высоцкий – Странная сказка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Старательская
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сорняков, когда созреют
- Владимир Высоцкий – Снова печь барахлит, тут рублей не жалей
- Владимир Высоцкий – Снег скрипел подо мной
- Владимир Высоцкий – Смотрины
- Владимир Высоцкий – Случай на таможне
- Владимир Высоцкий – Случай
- Владимир Высоцкий – Слева бесы, справа бесы
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сколько я, сколько я видел на свете их
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

Alexander Blok (1880-1921), also Block, was a Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic. A classic of Russian literature.