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:
- Colbert Report: Australia by Raj Arumugam
- “My northern blood exults to face” poem – Alfred Austin
- Владимир Корнилов – Место
- Василий Тредиаковский – Будь жестока, будь упорна
- Владимир Маяковский – Студенту пролетарию
- Николай Огарев – Смутные мгновенья
- Relations by Sunil Sharma
- Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow by Sara Teasdale
- Валерий Брюсов – Германия (отрывки)
- Джон Донн – Ворожба над портретом
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 05 by Torquato Tasso
- I Swear by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Каждому сроку – свой путь
- After Long Silence by William Butler Yeats
- Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
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
- Robert Burns: The Braes O’ Killiecrankie:
- Robert Burns: The Battle Of Sherramuir:
- Robert Burns: Highland Harry Back Again:
- Robert Burns: I Gaed A Waefu’ Gate Yestreen:
- Robert Burns: Ca’ The Yowes To The Knowes:
- Robert Burns: Willie Brew’d A Peck O’ Maut:
- Robert Burns: Extemporaneous Effusion: On being appointed to an Excise division.
- Robert Burns: Extemporaneous Effusion: On being appointed to an Excise division.
- Robert Burns: Sonnet On Receiving A Favour: Addressed to Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintry.
- Robert Burns: Presentation Stanzas To Correspondents:
- Robert Burns: The Kirk Of Scotland’s Alarm:
- Robert Burns: Epigram On Francis Grose The Antiquary:
- Robert Burns: On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland: Collecting The Antiquities Of That Kingdom
- Robert Burns: My Eppie Adair:
- Robert Burns: Whistle O’er The Lave O’t:
- Robert Burns: The Laddie’s Dear Sel’:
- Robert Burns: Carle, An The King Come:
- Robert Burns: Tam Glen:
- Robert Burns: My Love, She’s But A Lassie Yet:
- Robert Burns: John Anderson, My Jo:
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.