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:
- And The Black Scythe With Its Beak of Ibis by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Ольга Берггольц – О, где ты запела
- Михаил Лермонтов – Блистая, пробегают облака
- Irish Love Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Late Leaves by Walter Savage Landor
- The Land by Rudyard Kipling
- Do You Know What It’s Like
- Listening To Rwanda Genocide by Satish Verma
- Absolute Divine by Nithin Purple
- I Am Me by Patrick Neo Mabiletsa
- Lament of the Frontier Guard poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Sonnet LVI by William Shakespeare
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 121. Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Epistle to a Young Friend by Robert Burns
- Thalidomide 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
- Николай Рубцов – Зимняя песня
- Николай Рубцов – Жеребенок
- Николай Рубцов – Загородил мою дорогу
- Николай Рубцов – Я тебя целовал
- Николай Рубцов – Хороший улов
- Николай Рубцов – Возвращение из рейса
- Николай Рубцов – Воробей
- Николай Рубцов – Ветер всхлипывал, словно дитя
- Николай Рубцов – Весна на берегу Бии
- Николай Огарев – Я сорвал ветку кипариса
- Николай Огарев – Хандра
- Николай Огарев – Выпьем, что ли, Ваня
- Николай Огарев – В прогулке поздней видел я
- Николай Огарев – Тебе я счастья не давал довольно
- Николай Огарев – Свисти ты, о ветер, с бессонною силой
- Николай Огарев – Смутные мгновенья
- Николай Огарев – С полуночи ветер холодный подул
- Николай Огарев – Расстались мы
- Николай Огарев – Прощанье с краем, откуда не уезжал
- Николай Огарев – Предисловие к колоколу
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.