A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
I.
In ev’ry Town, where Thamis rolls his Tyde,
A narrow pass there is, with Houses low;
Where ever and anon, the Stream is ey’d,
And many a Boat soft sliding to and fro.
There oft are heard the notes of Infant Woe,
The short thick Sob, loud Scream, and shriller Squall:
How can ye, Mothers, vex your Children so?
Some play, some eat, some cack against the wall,
And as they crouchen low, for bread and butter call.
II.
And on the broken pavement, here and there,
Doth many a stinking sprat and herring lie;
A brandy and tobacco shop is near,
And hens, and dogs, and hogs are feeding by;
And here a sailor’s jacket hangs to dry.
At ev’ry door are sun-burnt matrons seen,
Mending old nets to catch the scaly fry;
Now singing shrill, and scolding eft between;
Scolds answer foul-mouth’d scolds; bad neighbourhood I ween.
III.
The snappish cur, (the passengers’ annoy)
Close at my heel with yelping treble flies;
The whimp’ring girl, and hoarser-screaming boy,
Join to the yelping treble shrilling cries;
The scolding Quean to louder notes doth rise,
And her full pipes those shrilling cries confound;
To her full pipes the grunting hog replies;
The grunting hogs alarm the neighbours round,
And curs, girls, boys, and scolds, in the deep bass are drown’d.
IV.
Hard by a Sty, beneath a roof of thatch,
Dwelt Obloquy, who in her early days
Baskets of fish at Billingsgate did watch,
Cod, whiting, oyster, mackrel, sprat, or plaice:
There learn’d she speech from tongues that never cease.
Slander beside her, like a Mag-pie, chatters,
With Envy, (spitting Cat) dread foe to peace;
Like a curs’d Cur, Malice before her clatters,
And vexing ev’ry wight, tears clothes and all to tatters.
V.
Her dugs were mark’d by ev’ry Collier’s hand,
Her mouth was black as bull-dogs at the stall:
She scratch’d, bit, and spar’d ne lace ne band,
And bitch and rogue her answer was to all;
Nay, e’en the parts of shame by name would call:
Yea, when she passed by or lane or nook,
Would greet the man who turn’d him to the Wall,
And by his hand obscene the porter took,
Nor ever did askance like modest Virgin look.
VI.
Such place hath Deptford, navy-building town,
Woolwich and Wapping smelling strong of pitch;
Such Lambeth, envy of each band and gown,
And Twick’nam such, which fairer scenes enrich,
Grots, statues, urns, and Johnston’s Dog and Bitch,
Ne village is without, on either side,
All up the silver Thames, or all adown;
Ne Richmond’s self, from whose tall front are ey’d
Vales, spires, meandring streams, and Windsor’s tow’ry pride.
A few random poems:
- The Bridge by Shel Silverstein
- Internal Migration Being Tour
- The Dirge of Wallace by Thomas Campbell
- Elijah by Peter Bardsley
- My teacher wasn’t half as nice as yours seems to be by Roald Dahl
- Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us by William Ernest Henley
- Владимир Степанов – Праздник сентября
- Epitaph On Fop, A Dog Belonging To Lady Throckmorton by William Cowper
- Old Memory by William Butler Yeats
- Artegal And Elidure by William Wordsworth
- Paula Becker To Clara Westhoff
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Smoke by Théophile Gautier
- Spring Day poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A March in the Ranks, Hard-prest. by Walt Whitman
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
- Hurrahing In Harvest poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Hope Holds to Christ poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Henry Purcell poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Heaven–Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Harry Ploughman poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- God’s Grandeur poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- For A Picture Of St. Dorothea poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Felix Randal poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Epithalamion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Easter Communion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Duns Scotus’s Oxford poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Denis poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Cheery Beggar poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Carrion Comfort poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Brothers poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Binsey Poplars poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Barnfloor and Winepress poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- At The Wedding March poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Ash-Boughs poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- As Kingfishers Catch Fire poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
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