When the investing darkness growls,
And deep reverberates to deep;
When keyhole whines and chimney howls,
And all the roofs and windows weep;
Then, through the doorless walls of sleep,
The still-sealed ear and shuttered sight,
Phantoms of memory steal and creep,
The very ghosts of sound and light-
Dream-visions and dream-voices of a bygone night.
I see again, I hear again,
Where lightnings flash and house-eaves drip,
A flying swirl of waves and rain-
That storm-path between Sound and Rip.
I feel the swaying of the ship
In every gust that rocks the trees,
And taste that brine upon my lip
And smell the freshness of the breeze
That sped us through the welter of those racing seas.
I hear the menace of the call
To rope and rivet, wheel and mast,
In the swift onrush of the squall,
The challenge of the thundering blast
To daring men as it sweeps past;
And in my dream I have no dread.
Rivet and rope are firm and fast,
The clear lights shining, green and red,
The quiet eyes of sentry watching overhead.
What epic battles pass unsung!
It was a war of gods befell
On that wild night when we were young.
They rode, like cavalry of hell,
The mighty winds, the monstrous swell,
On their white horses, fierce and fleet;
They stood at bay, invincible,
Where pulsed beneath our sliding feet
The faithful iron heart that never lost a beat.
How the sharp sea-spume lashed and stung!
How the salt sea-wind tugged and tare
And clawed and mauled us where we clung,
With panting breasts and streaming hair,
To our frail eyrie in mid-air!
How we exulted in the fight-
With neither haste nor halt to dare
Those Titans furies in their might,
Undaunted and unswerving in our insect flight!
No lap of exquisite repose!
A mortar wherein souls are brayed;
An anvil ringing to the blows
Whereby true men are shaped, and made
Divinely strong and unafraid.
Such gallant sailor-men there be-
Never unready or dismayed,
Though ‘t’s the face of death they see
In cyclone, fire and fog, and white surf on the lee.
Not only in the sylvan bower,
On dreaming hill, by sleeping mere,
The holy place-the sacred hour.
Beset by every form of fear,
Darkness ahead and danger near,
Sorely hard-driven and hard-prest,
But still unspent and of good cheer-
He finds them who can pass the test,
Who never winks an eye and never stays to rest
A few random poems:
- Characteristics Of A Child Three Years Old by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Плещеев – Весна
- On The Death Of The Bishop Of Ely. Anno Aet. 17. (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- Нина Пикулева – Яна-Несмеяна
- Ок Мельникова – Не горим, не светим
- Love
- Solomon And The Witch by William Butler Yeats
- Minneapolipstick by Rachel McKibbens
- Mugging (I) poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Владимир Высоцкий – Ну почему
- Leaves Compared With Flowers by Robert Frost
- Battle Stars
- The Music Of The Rains – English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: Epigram On Rough Roads:
- Владимир Вишневский – На исходе двадцатого века
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
- Василий Жуковский – Библия
- Василий Жуковский – Бедный певец
- Василий Жуковский – Ахилл
- Василий Жуковский – Адельстан
- Василий Жуковский – 19 марта 1823
- Василий Жуковский – К Перовскому (Счастливец, ею ты любим)
- Василий Жуковский – К Нине (О Нина, о Нина)
- Василий Жуковский – К ней
- Василий Жуковский – К мимо пролетавшему гению
- Василий Жуковский – К князю Вяземскому
- Василий Жуковский – К кн. Вяземскому и В.Л.Пушкину
- Василий Жуковский – К Филону
- Василий Жуковский – К Дмитриеву (Нет, не прошла)
- Василий Жуковский – Из альбома, подаренного Ростопчиной (Пушкин)
- Василий Жуковский – Гомер
- Василий Жуковский – Государыне великой княгине на рождение
- Василий Жуковский – Голос с того света
- Василий Жуковский – Герой
- Василий Жуковский – Гаральд
- Василий Жуковский – Эолова арфа
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.