A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food,
And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,
That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,
Behind the cloud topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky.
A few random poems:
- The Love That Goes A-Begging by Sara Teasdale
- Николай Гумилев – Командиру 5-го Александровского полка
- from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare
- The Hands That Hang Down
- Death Of Captain Cooke, by William Lisle Bowles
- Владимир Костров – Письмо в никуда
- Валерий Брюсов – Е.Т. (Кто глаза ее оправил)
- The Routine Things Around The House by Stephen Dunn
- Robert Burns: My Wife’s A Winsome Wee Thing:
- Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. by Walt Whitman
- Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool by Ruth Padel
- Italian Music in Dakota. by Walt Whitman
- Here the Frailest Leaves of Me. by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: On Politics:
- Константин Бальмонт – Да, я люблю одну тебя
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
- Robert Burns: I Hae Been At Crookieden:
- Robert Burns: Ye Jacobites By Name:
- Robert Burns: Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation:
- Robert Burns: Frae The Friends And Land I Love:
- Robert Burns: Nithsdale’s Welcome Hame:
- Robert Burns: Address To The Shade Of Thomson: On Crowning His Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with a Wreath of Bays.
- Robert Burns: Sweet Afton :
- Robert Burns: My Bonie Bell:
- Robert Burns: Thou Fair Eliza:
- Robert Burns: O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam :
- Robert Burns: My Tocher’s The Jewel:
- Robert Burns: Altho’ He Has Left Me:
- Robert Burns: My Eppie Macnab:
- Robert Burns: Johnie Lad, Cock Up Your Beaver:
- Robert Burns: Damon And Sylvia: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Lovely Polly Stewart:
- Robert Burns: You’re Welcome, Willie Stewart:
- Robert Burns: Epigram At Brownhill Inn:
- Robert Burns: The Gallant Weaver:
- Robert Burns: Verses On The Destruction Of The Woods Near Drumlanrig:
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
Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) was a a post-Restoration English poet and satirist. He is a poet of the (British) Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents.