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:
- The Bard by William Gilmore Simms
- The Poor House by Sara Teasdale
- Robert Burns: Ode, Sacred To The Memory Of Mrs. Oswald Of Auchencruive:
- I Salute You , O Women! by Ms Tabzeer Yaseen
- Огюст Барбье – Жертвы
- Confused and Distraught by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Negligence
- Note to Mr. Renton of Lamerton by Robert Burns
- Жан де Лафонтен – Человек и его Изображение
- Still, though the One I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- Olney Hymn 31: On The Death Of A Minister by William Cowper
- On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover by Sylvia Plath
- Morning-Land by Siegfried Sassoon
- Last Battle Cid
- run home, run home butterfly by Raj Arumugam
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 жаль, что много лет назад
- Как живёшь ветеран милиции
- Какая мама молодец
- Как хочу я в День влюбленных
- Как хорошо, что рядом верная подруга
- Как хорошо иметь подругу
- Как тяжело, когда идет война
- Как в поход я собираюсь
- Как воздух, математика нужна
- Как сегодня тихо в классе
- Как Снегурочка дела
- Как тамада я выступаю в роли теоретика
- Как привить ребенку любовь к чтению: советы и рекомендации – Poetry Monster
- Как просто было в юности
- Как прекрасны все цветы
- Ирина Гурина – Как пчёлы чуть не поссорились
- Ирина Гурина – Как появляются листочки
- Как прекрасно твое имя
- Как не бывает утро без рассвета
- Как небо сходится с водой
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.