A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)
Was it worth while to forego our wings
To gain these dextrous hands ?
Truly they fashion us wonderful things
As the fancy of man demands.
But–to fly! to sail through the lucid air
From crest to violet crest
Of these great grey mountains, quartz-veined and bare,
Where the white clouds gather and rest.
Even to flutter from flower to flower,–
To skim the tops of the trees,–
In the roseate light of a sun-setting hour
To drift on a sea-going breeze.
Ay, the hands have marvellous skill
To create us curious things,–
Baubles, playthings, weapons to kill,–
But–I would we had chosen wings!
A few random poems:
- Николай Глазков – Богатырское распутье
- Know, Celia, Since Thou Art So Proud by Thomas Carew
- Ode on Solitude poem – Alexander Pope
- Composed on The Eve Of The Marriage Of A Friend In The Vale Of Grasmere by William Wordsworth
- Ольга Берггольц – Детскосельский парк
- Otho The Great – Act III poem – John Keats poems
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man poem – A. E. Housman
- This by Ralph Angel
- Hope A-Left Behind by William Barnes
- Владимир Гиляровский – Покаюсь
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Твой знак пред жизнью
- Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought by William Shakespeare
- Ritual by Tala Bar
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Haunted. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
- The Boy by Vinko Kalinić
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
- Alicante Lullaby by Sylvia Plath
- Aerialist by Sylvia Plath
- Study in Hands by Théophile Gautier
- Smoke by Théophile Gautier
- Last Wish by Théophile Gautier
- Work and Play by Ted Hughes
- Wind by Ted Hughes
- Tractor by Ted Hughes
- Thrushes by Ted Hughes
- Thistles by Ted Hughes
- The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes
- The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes
- The Owl by Ted Hughes
- The Minotaur by Ted Hughes
- The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
- The Child Is Father To The Man by Ted Hughes
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child by Ted Hughes
- September by Ted Hughes
- Pied Beauty by Ted Hughes
- Old Age Gets Up by Ted Hughes
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

Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.