A poem by Alexander Pushkin – Pouchkine, Pooshkin (1799-1837), in English translation
Deep in the desert’s misery,
far in the fury of the sand,
there stands the awesome Upas Tree
lone watchman of a lifeless land.
The wilderness, a world of thirst,
in wrath engendered it and filled
its every root, every accursed
grey leafstalk with a sap that killed.
Dissolving in the midday sun
the poison oozes through its bark,
and freezing when the day is done
gleams thick and gem-like in the dark.
No bird flies near, no tiger creeps;
alone the whirlwind, wild and black,
assails the tree of death and sweeps
away with death upon its back.
And though some roving cloud may stain
with glancing drops those leaden leaves,
the dripping of a poisoned rain
is all the burning sand receives.
But man sent man with one proud look
towards the tree, and he was gone,
the humble one, and there he took
the poison and returned at dawn.
He brought the deadly gum; with it
he brought some leaves, a withered bough,
while rivulets of icy sweat
ran slowly down his livid brow.
He came, he fell upon a mat,
and reaping a poor slave’s reward,
died near the painted hut where sat
his now unconquerable lord.
The king, he soaked his arrows true
in poison, and beyond the plains
dispatched those messengers and slew
his neighbors in their own domains.
A few random poems:
- Spenserian Stanza. Written At The Close Of Canto II, Book V, Of “The Faerie Queene” poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Костров – Смуту и безверье не приемль
- Still, though the One I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- High Windows by Philip Larkin
- Goliath Of Gath by Phillis Wheatley
- Михаил Кузмин – Трое (Нас было трое)
- Новелла Матвеева – Смех Фавна
- An Epistle To Joseph Hill, Esq. by William Cowper
- Sometimes by Vinko Kalinić
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- Гавриил Державин – Анакреоново удовольствие
- laugh to cry by Raj Arumugam
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- Омар Хайям – Душой ты безбожник с Писаньем в руке
- Новелла Матвеева – Василий Андреевич
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
- My Friends by W. S. Merwin
- Language by W. S. Merwin
- It Is March by W. S. Merwin
- William Stanley Merwin – William Stanley Merwin
- Green Fields by W. S. Merwin
- For The Anniversary Of My Death by W. S. Merwin
- For A Coming Extinction by W. S. Merwin
- When I Met My Muse by William Stafford
- Waking at 3 a.m. by William Stafford
- Traveling Through The Dark by William Stafford
- Thinking For Berky by William Stafford
- The Light By The Barn by William Stafford
- Security by William Stafford
- Returned To Say by William Stafford
- Remembering Mountain Men by William Stafford
- Objector by William Stafford
- Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing by William Stafford
- Lit Instructor by William Stafford
- Just Thinking by William Stafford
- William Stafford – William Stafford
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 Pushkin (1799-1937) was a Russian poet, playwright and prose writer, founder of the realistic trend in Russian literature, literary critic and theorist of literature, historian, publicist, journalist; one of the most important cultural figures in Russia in the first third of the 19th century.