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:
- Картошка
- Олег Григорьев – Картинка
- Hitler, a poem about Hitler
- Village Song by Sarojini Naidu
- On Colley Cibber poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Как в поход я собираюсь
- Николай Языков – Элегия (Ночь безлунная звездами)
- Вера Звягинцева – Моя любовь к Армении похожа
- Огюст Барбье – Собачий пир
- Narva and Mored by Thomas Chatterton
- Trebetherick poem – John Betjeman poems
- A Poet I knew by Martin Zakovski
- O Tan-faced Prairie Boy. by Walt Whitman
- Here Dead We Lie poem – A. E. Housman
- Владимир Британишский – Царство – одно, но России-то – две
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
- Владимир Британишский – Карьеры лицеистов
- Владимир Британишский – Калмыцкое побережье Каспия
- Владимир Британишский – Как турмалин, что субстанцию сланца
- Владимир Британишский – Как из конного двора
- Владимир Британишский – Из рассказов отца
- Владимир Британишский – Иван Долгорукой
- Владимир Британишский – Итальянское путешествие
- Владимир Британишский – История, поколобродив тут
- Владимир Британишский – Историк и источник
- Владимир Британишский – Иона
- Владимир Британишский – Инициалы: Д.Я
- Владимир Британишский – И у нас однако ж был Лицей
- Владимир Британишский – Греч: Встреча с Батюшковым
- Владимир Британишский – Горы, горы – горизонты
- Владимир Британишский – Горный институт
- Владимир Британишский – Глухарь
- Владимир Британишский – Гердер в Риге
- Владимир Британишский – Геометрия
- Владимир Британишский – Философы! Не верьте островам
- Владимир Британишский – Фет в кирасирском полку
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.