A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Whether he thinks to little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself, abus’d or disabus’d;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

A few random poems:
- C’est la nuit aveugle by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Robert Burns: Inscription At Friars’ Carse Hermitage: To the Memory of Robert Riddell.
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Веселый ветер
- Иван Барков – Венерино оружие
- Edom O’ Gordon poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Pastiche For Eve by Weldon Kees
- Иван Мятлев – Старушка
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Первая борозда
- The True Use of the Looking-Glass by William Somervile
- Ode to Beer, an Irish Song
- Postures by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Константин Бальмонт – Если грустно тебе
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нам говорят без всякой лести
- A Rajput Love Song by Sarojini Naidu
- Владимир Корнилов – Черный день
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
- Vorticism Is A Choka In Its Modular Home
- Violets Beauty Passing
- Victor
- Untitled
- Traveling
- Tracks In The Private Country
- Thoughts Religious Content
- The World
- The Sacred Tree
- The Poet And Imagination
- The Holy Tree
- The Emigrant
- Tears
- Simple Heart
- Silence
- She
- Sealed Appropriate
- Seal
- Sea Salt A Villanelle
- Salamis Quot
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 Pope (1688 – 1744) was a a post-Restoration English poet and satirist. He is a poet of the (British) Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents.