Oh Amber Eyes, oh Golden Eyes!
Oh Eyes so softly gay!
Wherein swift fancies fall and rise,
Grow dark and fade away.
Eyes like a little limpid pool
That holds a sunset sky,
While on its surface, calm and cool,
Blue water lilies lie.
Oh Tender Eyes, oh Wistful Eyes,
You smiled on me one day,
And all my life, in glad surprise,
Leapt up and pleaded “Stay!”
Alas, oh cruel, starlike eyes,
So grave and yet so gay,
You went to lighten other skies,
Smiled once and passed away.
Oh, you whom I name “Golden Eyes,”
Perhaps I used to know
Your beauty under other skies
In lives lived long ago.
Perhaps I rowed with galley slaves,
Whose labour never ceased,
To bring across Phoenician waves
Your treasure from the East.
Maybe you were an Emperor then
And I a favourite slave;
Some youth, whom from the lions’ den
You vainly tried to save!
Maybe I reigned, a mighty King,
The early nations knew,
And you were some slight captive thing,
Some maiden whom I slew.
Perhaps, adrift on desert shores
Beside some shipwrecked prow,
I gladly gave my life for yours.
Would I might give it now!
Or on some sacrificial stone
Strange Gods we satisfied,
Perhaps you stooped and left a throne
To kiss me ere I died.
Perhaps, still further back than this,
In times ere men were men,
You granted me a moment’s bliss
In some dark desert den,
When, with your amber eyes alight
With iridescent flame,
And fierce desire for love’s delight,
Towards my lair you came
Ah laughing, ever-brilliant eyes,
These things men may not know,
But something in your radiance lies,
That, centuries ago,
Lit up my life in one wild blaze
Of infinite desire
To revel in your golden rays,
Or in your light expire.
If this, oh Strange Ringed Eyes, be true,
That through all changing lives
This longing love I have for you
Eternally survives,
May I not sometimes dare to dream
In some far time to be
Your softly golden eyes may gleam
Responsively on me?
Ah gentle, subtly changing eyes,
You smiled on me one day,
And all my life in glad surprise
Leaped up, imploring “Stay!”
Alas, alas, oh Golden Eyes,
So cruel and so gay,
You went to shine in other skies,
Smiled once and passed away.
A few random poems:
- The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats
- Postscript by Seamus Heaney
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Hawk poem – Andrew Demcak poems | Poems and Poetry
- polyphony_in_a_cathedral.html
- Insolent couplets
- Владимир Высоцкий – О нашей встрече
- Robert Burns: Elegy On “Stella”: The following poem is the work of some hapless son of the Muses who deserved a better fate. There is a great deal of “The voice of Cona” in his solitary, mournful notes; and had the sentiments been clothed in Shenstone’s language, they would have been no discredit even to that elegant poet.-R.B.
- Владимир Высоцкий – В плен, приказ, не сдаваться
- Олег Бундур – Тополёк
- September poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Awed by her splendor by Sappho
- Владимир Маяковский – Нормализованная гайка (РОСТА № 171)
- A Winter Ship by Sylvia Plath
- Song—A Man’s a Man for a’ that 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
- Robert Burns: A Poet’s Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter: The First Instance That Entitled Him To The Venerable Appellation Of Father
- Robert Burns: Epistle To John Rankine: Enclosing Some Poems
- Robert Burns: Reply To An Announcement By J. Rankine: On His Writing To The Poet, That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him.
- Robert Burns: Ballad On The American War:
- Robert Burns Country: In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer:
- Robert Burns: On My Ever Honoured Father:
- Robert Burns: On My Own Friend And My Father’s Friend, Wm. Muir In Tarbolton Mill:
- Robert Burns: On James Grieve, Laird Of Boghead, Tarbolton :
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton:
- Robert Burns: Remorse: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Wha Is That At My Bower-Door:
- Robert Burns: Green Grow The Rashes: A Fragment
- Robert Burns: My Nanie, O:
- Robert Burns: Song Composed In August:
- Robert Burns: The Rigs O’ Barley:
- Robert Burns: I Dream’d I Lay:
- Robert Burns: Poor Mailie’s Elegy:
- Robert Burns: Death And Dying Words Of Poor Mailie, The Author’s Only Pet Yowe., The. An Unco Mournfu’ Tale:
- Robert Burns: John Barleycorn: A Ballad :
- Robert Burns: My Father Was A Farmer:
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
Violet Nicolson ( 1865 – 1904); otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory), was an English poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she became a best-selling author. She committed suicide and is buried in Madras, now Chennai, India.