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.
A few random poems:
- At The Abbey Theatre by William Butler Yeats
- Tears
- Владимир Маяковский – О патриархе Тихоне
- Robert Burns: Lines To An Old Sweetheart:
- That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- A Human Being Needs Strong Tea
- Song—A Health to ane I loe dear by Robert Burns
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- Song—The Highland Balou by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: A Mother’s Lament For the Death of Her Son.:
- Panic
- Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I) poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Wind In Woone’s Feäce by William Barnes
- Ольга Седакова – Плач
- A Winter Night by Robert Burns
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 Глазков – Дремота обрела права
- Николай Глазков – Дождь
- Николай Глазков – Должны мы все свой пай нести
- Николай Глазков – Девятое мая
- Николай Глазков – Давно хотел сложить стихи
- Николай Глазков – Чтоб улыбалось счастье
- Николай Глазков – Что ни год, идёт вперёд
- Николай Глазков – Чингисхан, Батый, Аттила
- Николай Глазков – Четыре времени года
- Николай Глазков – Бывают в нашей жизни величины
- Николай Глазков – Быть хочешь постоянно пьяным
- Николай Глазков – Была зима
- Николай Глазков – Богатырское распутье
- Николай Глазков – Без поражений нет побед
- Николай Глазков – Баллада о трактористе и ритуальном камне
- Николай Глазков – Бабье лето
- Николай Глазков – А минувшее все непонятнее ребусов
- Николай Глазков – 9-е мая
- Николай Гербель – Зной
- Николай Гербель – Введение к поэме
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.