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:
- The Ballad of Fisher’s Boarding-House by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Разлука
- Rock ‘N’ Roll Band by Shel Silverstein
- When You Go Away by W. S. Merwin
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про ребёнка-поросёнка
- Entering the Body by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- Федор Сологуб – Ах, лягушки по дорожке
- Coming Through The Rye by Robert Burns
- Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats. by Walt Whitman
- New York’s Last Gleanings by Matthew Abuelo
- Robert Burns: The Rights Of Woman: An Occasional Address. Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her benefit night, November 26, 1792.
- Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Buried Train by Robert Bly
- Love Preparing to Fly poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Law of the Jungle by Rudyard Kipling
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 Маяковский – Рассказ про то, как узнал Фадей закон
- Владимир Маяковский – Рассказ одного об одной мечте
- Владимир Маяковский – Рассказ о Климе, купившем заем, и Прове, не подумавшем о счастье своем
- Владимир Маяковский – Расчистка пути (РОСТА)
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше. Теперь
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше офицера только рубить учили… (РОСТА №632)
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше иностранцы шли в Россию как разбойники и воры… (Роста №105)
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше были писатели белоручки… (Роста №52)
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше буржуи о производстве думали… (РОСТА №792)
- Владимир Маяковский – Раек (РОСТА №8)
- Владимир Маяковский – Радуются ли империалисты-победители? (Главполитпросвет №335)
- Владимир Маяковский – Радоваться рано
- Владимир Маяковский – Работникам стиха и прозы, на лето едущим в колхозы
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий, ты читал СНК наказ?.. (Главполитпросвет №292)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий! (РОСТА №735)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий при капитализме работал из-под палки… (РОСТА №666)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий, не смотри Антанте в рот… (РОСТА №173)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий корреспондент
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий! Глупость беспартийную выкинь!.. (РОСТА)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий, читай постановление СТО от 15 июня 1921 года (Главполитпросвет №222)
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.