A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
So when the verdure of his life was shed,
With all the grace of ripened manlihead,
And on his locks, but now so lovable,
Old age like desolating winter fell,
Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn:
Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn
Softly withheld, yet cherished him no less
With pious works of pitying tenderness;
Till when at length with vacant, heedless eyes,
And hoary height bent down none otherwise
Than burdened willows bend beneath their weight
Of snow when winter winds turn temperate, —
So bowed with years — when still he lingered on:
Then to the daughter of Hyperion
This counsel seemed the best: for she, afar
By dove-gray seas under the morning star,
Where, on the wide world’s uttermost extremes,
Her amber-walled, auroral palace gleams,
High in an orient chamber bade prepare
An everlasting couch, and laid him there,
And leaving, closed the shining doors. But he,
Deathless by Jove’s compassionless decree,
Found not, as others find, a dreamless rest.
There wakeful, with half-waking dreams oppressed,
Still in an aural, visionary haze
Float round him vanished forms of happier days;
Still at his side he fancies to behold
The rosy, radiant thing beloved of old;
And oft, as over dewy meads at morn,
Far inland from a sunrise coast is borne
The drowsy, muffled moaning of the sea,
Even so his voice flows on unceasingly, —
Lisping sweet names of passion overblown,
Breaking with dull, persistent undertone
The breathless silence that forever broods
Round those colossal, lustrous solitudes.
Times change. Man’s fortune prospers, or it falls.
Change harbors not in those eternal halls
And tranquil chamber where Tithonus lies.
But through his window there the eastern skies
Fall palely fair to the dim ocean’s end.
There, in blue mist where air and ocean blend,
The lazy clouds that sail the wide world o’er
Falter and turn where they can sail no more.
There singing groves, there spacious gardens blow —
Cedars and silver poplars, row on row,
Through whose black boughs on her appointed night,
Flooding his chamber with enchanted light,
Lifts the full moon’s immeasurable sphere,
Crimson and huge and wonderfully near.
A few random poems:
- Conversation Among The Ruins by Sylvia Plath
- A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices by Stephen Crane
- Inscribed on a Work of Hannah More’s by Robert Burns
- A dream is a butterfly poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: Extempore On Some Commemorations Of Thomson:
- Prologue To Spring by Sylvia Plath
- Федор Сологуб – В норе темно и мглисто
- Zitten Out The Wold Year by William Barnes
- Astrophel and Stella: XXXIII by Sir Philip Sidney
- Владимир Британишский – Урочище
- I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen
- Николай Глазков – Эрмитаж
- How Sweet I Roam’d by William Blake
- Coolness by Yosa Buson
- Spiritual Memories of Mother by Raj Napal
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
- After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost
- Acquainted With the Night by Robert Frost
- Acceptance by Robert Frost
- A Winter Eden by Robert Frost
- A Time to Talk by Robert Frost
- A Star in a Stoneboat by Robert Frost
- A Soldier by Robert Frost
- A Servant to Servants by Robert Frost
- A Question by Robert Frost
- A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost
- A Peck of Gold by Robert Frost
- A Patch of Old Snow by Robert Frost
- A Passing Glimpse by Robert Frost
- A Minor Bird by Robert Frost
- A Late Walk by Robert Frost
- A Hundred Collars by Robert Frost
- A Hillside Thaw by Robert Frost
- A Girl’s Garden by Robert Frost
- A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears, and Some Books by Robert Frost
- A Dream Pang by Robert Frost
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
Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was an American war poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, serving in the French Foreign Legion. Seeger was the brother of Charles Seeger, a noted American pacifist and musicologist and the uncle of folk musician, Pete Seeger.