Low on her little stool she sits
To make a nursing lap,
And cares for nothing but the form
Her little arms enwrap.
With hairless skull that gapes apart,
A broken plaster ball,
One chipped glass eye that squints askew,
And ne’er a nose at all-
No raddle left on grimy cheek,
No mouth that one can see-
It scarce discloses, at a glance,
What it was meant to be.
But something in the simple scheme
As it extends below
(It is the “tidy” from my chair
That she is rumpling so)-
A certain folding of the stuff
That winds the thing about
(But still permits the sawdust gore
To trickle down and out)-
The way it curves around her waist,
On little knees outspread-
Implies a body frail and dear,
Whence one infers a head.
She rocks the scarecrow to and fro,
With croonings soft and deep,
A lullaby designed to hush
The bunch of rags to sleep.
I ask what rubbish has she there.
“My dolly,” she replies,
But tone and smile and gesture say,
“My angel from the skies.”
Ineffable the look of love
Cast on the hideous blur
That somehow means a precious face,
Most beautiful, to her.
The deftness and the tenderness
Of her caressing hands . . . . . .
How can she possibly divine
For what the creature stands?
Herself a nurseling, that has seen
The summers and the snows
Of scarce five years of baby life.
And yet she knows-she knows.
Just as a puppy of the pack
Knows unheard huntsman’s call,
And knows it is a running hound
Before it learns to crawl.
Just as she knew, when hardly born,
The breast unseen before,
And knew-how well!-before they touched,
What milk and mouth were for.
So, by some mystic extra-sense
Denied to eyes and ears,
Her spirit communes with its own
Beyond the veil of years.
She hears unechoing footsteps run
On floors she never trod,
Sees lineaments invisible
As is the face of God-
Forms she can recognise and greet,
Though wholly hid from me.
Alas! a treasure that is not,
And that may never be.
The majesty of motherhood
Sits on her baby brow;
Before her little three-legged throne
My grizzled head must bow.
That dingy bundle in her arms
Symbols immortal things-
A heritage, by right divine,
Beyond the claims of kings.
A few random poems:
- Жан де Лафонтен – Мельник, Сын его и Осел
- An Antheme by William Strode
- Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites by William Butler Yeats
- Олег Бундур – Интересный вопрос
- Before the white chrysanthemum by Yosa Buson
- Obdurant men, the worst of the abstinant by Miles
- The Couriers by Sylvia Plath
- John Keats – John Keats Poems
- Aquatic Nocturne by Sylvia Plath
- Twelve Months After by Siegfried Sassoon
- He is more than a hero by Sappho
- Вера Звягинцева – Моя любовь к Армении похожа
- A Message To America
- Olney Hymn 39: The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death by William Cowper
- Duino Elegies: The First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
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
- Алексей Жемчужников – Почему
- Алексей Жемчужников – Письмо к юноше о ничтожности
- Алексей Жемчужников – Пауза
- Алексей Жемчужников – Памятник Пушкину
- Алексей Жемчужников – Отголосок девятой симфонии Бетховена
- Алексей Жемчужников – Осенью в швейцарской деревне
- Алексей Жемчужников – О, жизнь
- Алексей Хомяков – Русская песня
- Алексей Хомяков – Ritterspruch – Richterspruch
- Алексей Хомяков – Раскаявшейся России
- Алексей Хомяков – Просьба
- Алексей Толстой – Войдем сюда; здесь меж руин
- Алексей Толстой – Вновь растворилась дверь
- Алексей Толстой – Вeсeнние чувства
- Алексей Толстой – Василий Шибанов
- Алексей Толстой – В совести искал я долго обвиненья
- Алексей Толстой – В колокол, мирно дремавший, с налета тяжелая бомба
- Алексей Толстой – В альбом (Стрелок, на той поляне)
- Алексей Толстой – Уж ты нива моя, нивушка
- Алексей Толстой – Уж ласточки, кружась, над крышей щебетали
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
Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.