A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
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:
- A First Confession by William Butler Yeats
- A March in the Ranks, Hard-prest. by Walt Whitman
- Lover’s Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Moonless darkness stands between poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 12 poem – John Milton poems
- Владимир Набоков – Верба
- The Little Big Man by Rabindranath Tagore
- Юрий Коринец – Тишина
- The Lent Lily poem – A. E. Housman
- Be Not a War Poet by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Dance To It by Shel Silverstein
- Sonet 44 by William Alexander
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Going for the Cows. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
- “Once we were happy” by Torquato Tasso
- Николай Гумилев – Живала Ниагара
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
- Ольга Берггольц – Мой дом
- Ольга Берггольц – Мне не поведать о моей утрате
- Ольга Берггольц – Марш оловянных солдатиков
- Ольга Берггольц – Майя
- Ольга Берггольц – Лучший город
- Ольга Берггольц – Ленинградская осень
- Ольга Берггольц – Ласточки над обрывом
- Ольга Берггольц – Кирову
- Ольга Берггольц – Какая тёмная зима
- Ольга Берггольц – Как на озёрном хуторе
- Ольга Берггольц – К сердцу Родины руку тянет
- Ольга Берггольц – Из “Писем с дороги”
- Ольга Берггольц – И вновь одна, совсем одна в дорогу
- Ольга Берггольц – Февральский дневник
- Ольга Берггольц – Два стихотворения дочерям
- Ольга Берггольц – Дорога на фронт
- Ольга Берггольц – Детскосельский парк
- Ольга Берггольц – Церковь “Дивная” в Угличе
- Ольга Берггольц – Борису Корнилову
- Ольга Берггольц – Беатриче (строгая любовь)
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
