A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn’d, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent’ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen’rous breast?
Chorus.
Love’s purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand’ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen’s kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.
Semichorus.
Oh source of ev’ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev’rence, hope, and love.
Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love’s unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.
A few random poems:
- Twelve Months After by Siegfried Sassoon
- Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Sonnet # 15 by Luis A. Estable
- In Barracks by Siegfried Sassoon
- Аля Кудряшева – Поперек
- The Oak and the Rose by Shel Silverstein
- For The Future by Wendell Berry
- Константин Бальмонт – На вершине
- Book Ends by Tony Harrison
- Wishes by Satish Verma
- I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Love and Folly by William Cullen Bryant
- New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
- Ballade Made In The Hot Weather by William Ernest Henley
- Inscription for an Alter of Independence by Robert Burns
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
- Why England Is Conservative poem – Alfred Austin
- Who Would Not Die For England! poem – Alfred Austin
- “When the reaper lays the sickle by ” poem – Alfred Austin
- When Runnels Began To Leap And Sing poem – Alfred Austin
- ” When in the long–drawn avenues of Thought” poem – Alfred Austin
- “What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far” poem – Alfred Austin
- “`Were I a Poet, I would dwell” poem – Alfred Austin
- Since We Must Die poem – Alfred Austin
- Wardens Of The Wave poem – Alfred Austin
- To The Autumn Wind poem – Alfred Austin
- To Robert Louis Stevenson poem – Alfred Austin
- To Ireland poem – Alfred Austin
- To England poem – Alfred Austin
- To Ellen Terry poem – Alfred Austin
- To Beatrice Stuart–Wortley Ætat poem – Alfred Austin
- To Arms! poem – Alfred Austin
- To Arms! (II) poem – Alfred Austin
- To Alfred Tennyson poem – Alfred Austin
- “‘Tis because, though in dusky bower” poem – Alfred Austin
- Time’s Weariness poem – Alfred Austin
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