A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
Oft when sweet music undulated round,
Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea
Thine image from the waves of blissful sound
Rose and thy sudden light illumined me.
And in the country, leaf and flower and air
Would alter and the eternal shape emerge;
Because they spoke of thee the fields seemed fair,
And Joy to wait at the horizon’s verge.
The little cloud-gaps in the east that filled
Gray afternoons with bits of tenderest blue
Were windows in a palace pearly-silled
That thy voluptuous traits came glimmering through.
And in the city, dominant desire
For which men toil within its prison-bars,
I watched thy white feet moving in the mire
And thy white forehead hid among the stars.
Mystical, feminine, provoking, nude,
Radiant there with rosy arms outspread,
Sum of fulfillment, sovereign attitude,
Sensual with laughing lips and thrown-back head,
Draped in the rainbow on the summer hills,
Hidden in sea-mist down the hot coast-line,
Couched on the clouds that fiery sunset fills,
Blessed, remote, impersonal, divine;
The gold all color and grace are folded o’er,
The warmth all beauty and tenderness embower, —
Thou quiverest at Nature’s perfumed core,
The pistil of a myriad-petalled flower.
Round thee revolves, illimitably wide,
The world’s desire, as stars around their pole.
Round thee all earthly loveliness beside
Is but the radiate, infinite aureole.
Thou art the poem on the cosmic page —
In rubric written on its golden ground —
That Nature paints her flowers and foliage
And rich-illumined commentary round.
Thou art the rose that the world’s smiles and tears
Hover about like butterflies and bees.
Thou art the theme the music of the spheres
Echoes in endless, variant harmonies.
Thou art the idol in the altar-niche
Faced by Love’s congregated worshippers,
Thou art the holy sacrament round which
The vast cathedral is the universe.
Thou art the secret in the crystal where,
For the last light upon the mystery Man,
In his lone tower and ultimate despair,
Searched the gray-bearded Zoroastrian.
And soft and warm as in the magic sphere,
Deep-orbed as in its erubescent fire,
So in my heart thine image would appear,
Curled round with the red flames of my desire.
A few random poems:
- old-boy.html
- The Angel Of The Church by William Gilmore Simms
- Homecoming of Love on the Sands by Rafael Alberti
- In the New Garden in all the Parts. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Британишский – Сравнения
- The Haughty Snail-King by Vachel Lindsay
- A Woman Waking by Philip Levine
- Blue eyes by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Ольга Седакова – Прощание
- Владимир Высоцкий – Куплеты нечистой силы
- Sleep of the Body the Soul’s Awakening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Василий Жуковский – Светлане
- Last News About The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- Termites by Piera Chen
- Parted by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- Николай Карамзин – Послание к женщинам
- Николай Карамзин – Послание к Александру Алексеевичу Плещееву
- Николай Карамзин – Покой и слава
- Николай Карамзин – Меланхолия
- Николай Карамзин – Любовь и дружба
- Николай Карамзин – Луизе в день ее рождения 13 генваря, при вручении ей подарка
- Николай Карамзин – Куплеты из одной сельской комедии, игранной благородными любителями театра
- Николай Карамзин – Клятва и преступление
- Николай Карамзин – К версальским садам
- Николай Карамзин – К соловью
- Николай Карамзин – К самому себе
- Николай Карамзин – К портрету Ломоносова
- Николай Карамзин – К неверной
- Николай Карамзин – К милости
- Николай Карамзин – К Лиле
- Николай Карамзин – К Эмилии
- Николай Карамзин – К Дмитриеву (Многие барды, лиру настроив)
- Николай Карамзин – К бедному поэту
- Николай Карамзин – К Алине на смерть ее супруга
- Николай Карамзин – Из письма к И. И. Дмитриеву (Но что же скажем мы о времени прошедшем)
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
Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was an American war poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, serving in the French Foreign Legion. Seeger was the brother of Charles Seeger, a noted American pacifist and musicologist and the uncle of folk musician, Pete Seeger.