How will our unborn children scoff at us
In the good years to come,
The happier years to come,
Because, like driven sheep, we yielded thus,
Before the shearers dumb.
What are the words their wiser lips will say?
“These men had gained the light;
“These women knew the right;
“They had their chance, and let it slip away.
“They did not, when they might.
“They were the first to hear the gospel preached,
“And to believe therein;
“Yet they remained in sin.
“They saw the promised land they might have reached,
“And dared not enter in.
“They might have won their freedom, had they tried;
“No savage laws forbade;
“For them the way was made.
“They might have had the joys for which they cried
“And yet they shrank, afraid.
“Afraid to face-the martyr’s rack and flame?
“The traitor’s dungeon? Nay-
“Of what their world would say-
“The smile, the joke, the thinnest ghost of blame!
“Lord! Lord! What fools were they!”
And we-no longer actors of the stage
We cumber now-maybe
With other eyes shall see
This wasted chance, and with celestial rage
Cry “O what fools were we!”
A few random poems:
- Олег Мехов – Ах, у нашего Антошки
- A Dream (English Translation) by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Христианские мысли перед битвами
- Totem by Sylvia Plath
- A Sort Of A Song by William Carlos Williams
- Владимир Орлов – Март
- The Dead King by Rudyard Kipling
- Primrose by Patrick Kavanagh
- Strike, Churl poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- From The Frontier Of Writing by Seamus Heaney
- L’Allegro poem – John Milton poems
- The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
- Sitting Beside The Very Street by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Insolent couplets
- A Stone I died by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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
- Как папа женился
- К той, что названа Кариной
- Как Лера чудо искала
- Как Муромец Илья когда-то
- Как на Масляной неделе
- К 8-му марта
- К нам приходит в день февральский снежною тропой
- Из головы у меня не выходишь
- Из всех искусств кинематограф
- Иван Варавва – Жаворонок
- Иван Варавва – В закубанском лесу
- Иван Варавва – Выйду в степь, на поля плодородные
- Иван Варавва – Раскинет объятия поле
- Иван Варавва – Соловей на веточке
- Иван Варавва – Кубань
- Иван Варавва – Мать Кубань
- Иван Варавва – На окраине села
- Иван Мятлев – Соловей
- Иван Мятлев – Старушка
- Иван Мятлев – Звезда
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

Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.