A poem by Alexander Pushkin – Pouchkine, Pooshkin (1799-1837), in English translation
Deep in the desert’s misery,
far in the fury of the sand,
there stands the awesome Upas Tree
lone watchman of a lifeless land.
The wilderness, a world of thirst,
in wrath engendered it and filled
its every root, every accursed
grey leafstalk with a sap that killed.
Dissolving in the midday sun
the poison oozes through its bark,
and freezing when the day is done
gleams thick and gem-like in the dark.
No bird flies near, no tiger creeps;
alone the whirlwind, wild and black,
assails the tree of death and sweeps
away with death upon its back.
And though some roving cloud may stain
with glancing drops those leaden leaves,
the dripping of a poisoned rain
is all the burning sand receives.
But man sent man with one proud look
towards the tree, and he was gone,
the humble one, and there he took
the poison and returned at dawn.
He brought the deadly gum; with it
he brought some leaves, a withered bough,
while rivulets of icy sweat
ran slowly down his livid brow.
He came, he fell upon a mat,
and reaping a poor slave’s reward,
died near the painted hut where sat
his now unconquerable lord.
The king, he soaked his arrows true
in poison, and beyond the plains
dispatched those messengers and slew
his neighbors in their own domains.
A few random poems:
- Юлия Друнина – Убивали молодость мою
- On Rabbi Kook’s Street by Yehuda Amichai
- Василий Жуковский – Дружба
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Добрый совет
- Robert Burns: A Grace After Dinner, Extempore:
- Absence poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Holidays by Nicolene Kissinger
- Half-Ballad of Waterval by Rudyard Kipling
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- In Drear-Nighted December poem – John Keats poems
- Hope Holds to Christ poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Sonnet LIX by William Shakespeare
- Dawn by Rupert Brooke
- Владимир Маяковский – Праздник урожая
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
- Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Free the Holy Land — a poem about Palestine
- Sepukku
- Did Shakespeare write his own plays and 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
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1937) was a Russian poet, playwright and prose writer, founder of the realistic trend in Russian literature, literary critic and theorist of literature, historian, publicist, journalist; one of the most important cultural figures in Russia in the first third of the 19th century.