TRANSLATE POEMS

To The Pious Memory Of The Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the Blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
.....

John Dryden

A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem

I'm through with this grand looking-glass hotel
where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns;
methinks I shall absent me for a while
from rhetoric of these rococo queens.
.....

Sylvia Plath

Lancelot 05

Gawaine, his body trembling and his heart
Pounding as if he were a boy in battle,
Sat crouched as far away from everything
As walls would give him distance. Bedivere
.....

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Mystic Trumpeter

HARK! some wild trumpeter--some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter--listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
.....

Walt Whitman

Eveningsong At Bellosguardo

Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c'e certezza.
-Lorenzo di Medici

.....

Erica Jong

Don Juan: Canto The Ninth

Oh, Wellington! (or 'Villainton'--for Fame
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase-
.....

George Gordon Byron

Insomnia

Sleepless himself to give to others sleep.
He giveth His beloved sleep.

I HEARD the sounding of the midnight hour;
.....

James Thomson

Orient Ode

Lo, in the sanctuaried East,
Day, a dedicated priest
In all his robes pontifical exprest,
Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,
.....

Francis Thompson

Sandys Ghost ; A Proper Ballad On The New Ovid's Metamorphosis

Ye Lords and Commons, Men of Wit,
And Pleasure about Town;
Read this ere you translate one Bit
Of Books of high Renown.
.....

Alexander Pope

Sonnet 096: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
.....

William Shakespeare

From Allan Cunningham, To George Borrow, On His Proposing To Translate The 'kiaepe Viser’

Sing, sing, my friend; breathe life again
Through Norway's song and Denmark's strain:
On flowing Thames and Forth, in flood,
Pour Haco's war-song, fierce and rude.
.....

George Borrow

Sonnet Iii: To A Nightingale

Poor melancholy bird---that all night long
Tell'st to the Moon, thy tale of tender woe;
From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow,
And whence this mournful melody of song?
.....

Charlotte Smith

Dryden And Pope

Of our Laureate we now do sing-
His youthful muse had daring wing,
He then despised Baronhood,
And sang 'twas noble to be good.
.....

James Mcintyre

Song At The Feast Of Brougham Castle Upon The Restoration Of Lord Clifford, The Shepherd, To The Est

High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.-
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long:-
.....

William Wordsworth

In A Kentish Rose Garden.

Beside a Dial in the leafy close,
Where every bush was burning with the Rose,
With million roses falling flake by flake
Upon the lawn in fading summer snows:
.....

Mathilde Blind

The Hail-storm (from The Norse)

Sigvald Jarl was a famous Sea Rover, who, when unengaged in
his predatory expeditions, resided at Jomsborg, in Denmark.
He was the terror of the Norwegian coasts, which he ravaged
and pillaged almost at his pleasure. Hacon Jarl, who at that
.....

George Borrow

White Paper

SNOWY-SMOOTH beneath the pen-
Richest field that iron ploughs,
Germinating thoughts of men,
Tho- no heaven its rain allows.
.....

Sydney Wheeler Jephcott

The Gypsy

A fortnight before Christmas Gypsies were everywhere:
Vans were drawn up on wastes, women trailed to the fair.
'My gentleman,' said one, 'you've got a lucky face.'
'And you've a luckier,' I thought, 'if such grace
.....

Edward Thomas

Woodstock Park

Here in a little rustic hermitage
Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great,
Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate
The Consolations of the Roman sage.
.....

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

On Reading The

In a Kentish Rose Garden.


Beside a Dial in the leafy close,
.....

Mathilde Blind

Sonnet Xcvi

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
.....

William Shakespeare

After The French Manner

As Pope who gathers mony to translate
With Gay the Shepheard Writer mett of late.
Says Pope, your Ecclogues wont come out wth speed
For Phillips to reprieve him Tonson feed.
.....

Thomas Parnell

A Child Said, What Is The Grass?

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
.....

Walt Whitman

The Canary In His Cage

SING away, ay, sing away,
Merry little bird,
Always gayest of the gay,
Though a woodland roundelay
.....

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

O Flame Of Living Love

O flame of living love,
That dost eternally
Pierce through my soul with so consuming heat,
Since there's no help above,
.....

Arthur Symons

Ep - And - Ein

Sometimes I risk a faltering step
To meet these -steins, both Ein- and Ep-:
But hesitate and halt at last,
Finding the works of each too vast
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
.....

William Shakespeare

Epistles To Several Persons: Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot

Neque sermonibus vulgi dederis te, nec in prmiis spem posueris rerum tuarum; suiste oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Quid de te alii loquantur, ipsi videant,sed loquentur tamen.
(Cicero, De Re Publica VI.23)["... you will not any longer attend to the vulgar mob's gossip nor put your trust in human rewards for your deeds; virtue, through her own charms, should lead you to true glory. Let what others say about you be their concern; whatever it is, they will say it anyway."
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
.....

Alexander Pope

The Dunciad: Book Iii

But in her Temple's last recess inclos'd,
On Dulness' lap th' Anointed head repos'd.
Him close she curtains round with Vapours blue,
And soft besprinkles with Cimmerian dew.
.....

Alexander Pope

The Black Mousquetaire: A Legend Of France

Francois Xavier Auguste was a gay Mousquetaire,
The Pride of the Camp, the delight of the Fair:
He'd a mien so distingu and so dbonnaire,
And shrugg'd with a grace so recherch and rare,
.....

Richard Harris Barham

The Ring And The Book

Do you see this Ring?
'Tis Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
.....

Robert Browning

The Book And The Ring

Here were the end, had anything an end:
Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared
A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached,
And wide heaven held, a breathless minute-space,
.....

Robert Browning

Paracelsus: Part Iii: Paracelsus

Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.
Paracelsus, Festus.


.....

Robert Browning

Kelly's Conversion

KELLY the Ranger half opened an eye
To wink at the Army passing by,
While his hot breath, thick with the taint of beer,
Came forth from his lips in a drunken jeer.
.....

Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake

Insomnia

Sleepless himself to give to others sleep.
He giveth His beloved sleep.


.....

James Thomson - (bysshe Vanolis)

The Sonnets Xcvi - Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
.....

William Shakespeare

The Candidate.

Enough of Actors--let them play the player,
And, free from censure, fret, sweat, strut, and stare;
Garrick[1] abroad, what motives can engage
To waste one couplet on a barren stage?
.....

Charles Churchill

Ad Cimmerios

(A Prefatory Sonnet for SANTA LUCIA, the Misses Hodgkin's Magazine for the Blind)

We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well
Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play
.....

Richard Le Gallienne

The Candidate

This poem was written in , on occasion of the contest between the
Earls of Hardwicke and Sandwich for the High-stewardship of the
University of Cambridge, vacant by the death of the Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke. The spirit of party ran high in the University, and no
.....

Charles Churchill

The Critick And The Writer Of Fables

Weary, at last, of the Pindarick way,
Thro' which advent'rously the Muse wou'd stray;
To Fable I descend with soft Delight,
Pleas'd to Translate, or easily Endite:
.....

Anne Kingsmill Finch

To My Dead Friend Ben Johnson

I see that wreath which doth the wearer arm
'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm
To keep off deaths pale dart. For, Johnson then
Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.
.....

Henry King

Ode

To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne Killigrew,
Excellent in the Two Sister-arts of Poesy and Painting.

Thou youngest Virgin Daughter of the skies,
.....

John Dryden

Song At The Feast Of Brougham Castle Upon The Restoration O

, High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.--
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long:--
.....

William Wordsworth

New Year's Eve

I

The other night I had a dream, most clear
And comforting, complete
.....

Henry Van Dyke

From The Lost Letters Of Frederick Douglass

Dear Daughter,
Can you be fifty-three this
month? I still look for you to peek around
my door as if you'd discovered a toy
.....

Evie Shockley

Lycus The Centaur

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS


(The Argument: Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur).
.....

Thomas Hood

The River Maiden

Her gown was simple woven wool,
But, in repayment,
Her body sweet made beautiful
The simplest raiment:
.....

Victor James Daley

The Door Of Humility

ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
.....

Alfred Austin

The Fyftene Loyes Of Maryage

Somer passed/and wynter well begone
The dayes shorte/the darke nyghtes longe
Haue taken season/and brynghtnes of the sonne
Is lytell sene/and small byrdes songe
.....

Anonymous Olde English

The Swallow

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,
The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding; and beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
.....

Charlotte Smith