The Pleasure of Princes

What pleasures have great princes? These: to know

Themselves reputed mad with pride or power;

To speak few words — few words and short bring low

This ancient house, that city with flame devour;

To make old men, their father’s enemies,

Drunk on the vintage of the former age;

To have great painters show their mistresses

Naked to the succeeding time; engage

The cunning of able, treacherous ministers

To serve, despite themselves, the cause they hate,

And leave a prosperous kingdom to their heirs

Nursed by the caterpillars of the state;

To keep their spies in good men’s hearts; to read

The malice of the wise, and act betimes;

To hear the Grand Remonstrances of greed

Led by the pure; cheat justice of her crimes;

To beget worthless sons and, being old,

By starlight climb the battlements, and while

The pacing sentry hugs himself for cold,

Keep vigil like a lover, muse and smile,

And think, to see from the grim castle steep

The midnight city below rejoice and shine:

“There my great demon grumbles in his sleep

And dreams of his destruction, and of mine.”

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A few random poems:

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 

• love.html by Poetry In English
• lord_god_have_mercy_on_me.html by Poetry In English
• libation.html by Poetry In English
• least_in_a_list.html by Poetry In English
• interpret_the_light.html by Poetry In English
• innocence.html by Poetry In English
• in_the_stone_i_rooted.html by Poetry In English
• in_between_the_strophes.html by Poetry In English
• human_joys.html by Poetry In English
• human_charms.html by Poetry In English
• he_who_creates_re_creates_himself.html by Poetry In English
• hai_kou_unpublished.html by Poetry In English
• hai_kou.html by Poetry In English
• greek_light.html by Poetry In English
• greece.html by Poetry In English
• golden_eangle.html by Poetry In English
• gesture_theory_a_villanelle.html by Poetry In English
• gem_immortality.html by Poetry In English
• fruit_leaf_roots_flowers.html by Poetry In English
• first_verse.html 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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The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works