A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
III
Our sons have gone
to serve the Reds
to serve the Reds
to risk their heads!
O bitter,bitter pain,
Sweet living!
A torn overcoat
an Austrian gun!
-To get the bourgeosie
We’ll start a fire
a worldwide fire, and drench it
in blood-
The good Lord bless us!
-O you bitter bitterness,
boring boredom,
deadly boredom.
This is how I will
spend my time.
This is how I will
scratch my head,
munch on seeds,
some sunflower seeds,
play with my knife
play with my knife.
You bourgeosie, fly as a sparrow!
I’ll drink your blood,
your warm blood, for love,
for dark-eyed love.
God, let this soul, your servant,
rest in peace.
Such boredom!
XII
… On they march with sovereign tread…
‘Who else goes there? Come out! I said
come out!’ It is the wind and the red
flag plunging gaily at their head.
The frozen snow-drift looms in front.
‘Who’s in the drift! Come out! Come here!’
There’s only the homeless mongrel runt
limping wretchedly in the rear …
‘You mangy beast, out of the way
before you taste my bayonet.
Old mongrel world, clear off I say!
I’ll have your hide to sole my boot!
The shivering cur, the mongrel cur
bares his teeth like a hungry wolf,
droops his tail, but does not stir …
‘Hey answer, you there, show yourself.’
‘Who’s that waving the red flag?’
‘Try and see! It’s as dark as the tomb!’
‘Who’s that moving at a jog
trot, keeping to the back-street gloom?’
‘Don’t you worry ~ I’ll catch you yet;
better surrender to me alive!’
‘Come out, comrade, or you’ll regret
it ~ we’ll fire when I’ve counted five!’
Crack ~ crack ~ crack! But only the echo
answers from among the eaves …
The blizzard splits his seams, the snow
laughs wildly up the wirlwind’s sleeve …
Crack ~ crack ~ crack!
Crack ~ crack ~ crack!
… So they march with sovereign tread …
Behind them limps the hungry dog,
and wrapped in wild snow at their head
carrying a blood-red flag ~
soft-footed where the blizzard swirls,
invulnerable where bullets crossed ~
crowned with a crown of snowflake pearls,
a flowery diadem of frost,
ahead of them goes Jesus Christ.
A few random poems:
- Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Coleridge
- Dear Alzheimer’s by Maria Knox
- The Hunter by Shel Silverstein
- The Ghost by Walter de la Mare
- Don039t Lose Hope
- Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st by William Shakespeare
- Olney Hymn 64: Praise For Faith by William Cowper
- For A Picture Of St. Dorothea poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- A Serenade poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Migration of the Mind by Mike Yuan
- A Highly Valuable Chain Of Thoughts poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Circular by Thomas Hardy
- Ольга Седакова – Как упавшую руку
- Гавриил Державин – Ключ
- Verses on Sir Joshua Reynold’s Painted Window at New College, Oxford by Thomas Warton
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
- Юрий Верховский – Месяцу, заре, звезде, лазури
- Юрий Верховский – Как раненый олень кидается в поток
- Юрий Верховский – Есть имена, таинственны и стары
- Юрий Верховский – Ах, душечка моя, как нынче мне светло
- Жан де Лафонтен – Язычник и деревянный Идол
- Жан де Лафонтен – Врачи
- Жан де Лафонтен – Воля и Неволя
- Жан де Лафонтен – Волк, Мать и Ребенок
- Жан де Лафонтен – Волк и Лисица на суде перед Обезьяной
- Жан де Лафонтен – Волк и Конь
- Жан де Лафонтен – Война Крыс и Ласок
- Жан де Лафонтен – Виноградник и Олень
- Жан де Лафонтен – Утопленница
- Жан де Лафонтен – Третейский Судья, Брат милосердия и Пустынник
- Жан де Лафонтен – Старый Кот и Мышонок
- Жан де Лафонтен – Ссора Собак с Кошками и Кошек с Мышами
- Жан де Лафонтен – Совет Мышей
- Жан де Лафонтен – Смерть и Несчастный
- Жан де Лафонтен – Скупой, потерявший свое богатство
- Жан де Лафонтен – Шершни и Пчелы
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.