Tithonus

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

So when the verdure of his life was shed,

With all the grace of ripened manlihead,

And on his locks, but now so lovable,

Old age like desolating winter fell,

Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn:

Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn

Softly withheld, yet cherished him no less

With pious works of pitying tenderness;

Till when at length with vacant, heedless eyes,

And hoary height bent down none otherwise

Than burdened willows bend beneath their weight

Of snow when winter winds turn temperate, —

So bowed with years — when still he lingered on:

Then to the daughter of Hyperion

This counsel seemed the best: for she, afar

By dove-gray seas under the morning star,

Where, on the wide world’s uttermost extremes,

Her amber-walled, auroral palace gleams,

High in an orient chamber bade prepare

An everlasting couch, and laid him there,

And leaving, closed the shining doors. But he,

Deathless by Jove’s compassionless decree,

Found not, as others find, a dreamless rest.

There wakeful, with half-waking dreams oppressed,

Still in an aural, visionary haze

Float round him vanished forms of happier days;

Still at his side he fancies to behold

The rosy, radiant thing beloved of old;

And oft, as over dewy meads at morn,

Far inland from a sunrise coast is borne

The drowsy, muffled moaning of the sea,

Even so his voice flows on unceasingly, —

Lisping sweet names of passion overblown,

Breaking with dull, persistent undertone

The breathless silence that forever broods

Round those colossal, lustrous solitudes.

Times change. Man’s fortune prospers, or it falls.

Change harbors not in those eternal halls

And tranquil chamber where Tithonus lies.

But through his window there the eastern skies

Fall palely fair to the dim ocean’s end.

There, in blue mist where air and ocean blend,

The lazy clouds that sail the wide world o’er

Falter and turn where they can sail no more.

There singing groves, there spacious gardens blow —

Cedars and silver poplars, row on row,

Through whose black boughs on her appointed night,

Flooding his chamber with enchanted light,

Lifts the full moon’s immeasurable sphere,

Crimson and huge and wonderfully near.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 by John Betjeman
• Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry by John Betjeman
• Free the Holy Land — a poem about Palestine by Fledermaus
• Sepukku by Ураний
• Did Shakespeare write his own plays and poems? by Fledermaus

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works