English Poems

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
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No distance ever separates
Dreams and desires
No mirror ever dissolves
Reflection and water
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If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
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The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
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Translated into English in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
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Windows open vistas for us
Windows - of hearts, of minds or of eyes
Windows - which might open outward
Or inward
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I don't know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
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I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
...

Look December
Don't ever come now!
Look, December
Deserts unnumbered have expanded in me.
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Tell me, O moisture
Halted in the eternity of my eyes
Which stagnant epoch has confined you!
God weeps rain
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What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
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When I were schooled english wernt my thing.
My scores in English lurning no bells done ring.
Yea I grajaded but ain't english smart ….no lie!
Come end a school year the teach said 'By Bri.'
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How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
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My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
...

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
...

They sent me a salwar kameez
            peacock-blue,
                  and another
   glistening like an orange split open,
...

Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere a dream burns
Somewhere tears sparkle
Somewhere a moon smoulders
...

The walls have come out of doors
Narrows are the passages, many are the footprints
On the steep rock where the sun lies half reclined
Jumping over one's shadow, falling headlong
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Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery:
impractically shaped and--who knows?--self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,
...

My English is not British English,
Not American English,
Not Australian English,
Not Canadian English,
...

Is it a criticism? I doubt.

Rough notes, what to say it about? How to take a note of all that?
...

He is a professor of British English,
Accent and stress of King's Standard,
He of American English,
Slang, pronunciation and curtailed and shortened speech
...

No question but English
Gajanan Mishra

No question please,
...

On
International Mother Langauge Day,
The 21st of February
Thought I of
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Language is created by man, a mark of civilization for speaking, writing and reading
To acquire knowledge, create literature and share discoveries and new ideas to world;
Languages give identities to various groups of men in many nations of the world;
Learning knowledge by language, man has done progressive works in modern world!
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1
Oh, so sure sir, so funny but serious. English is a mixture sir, that's why no one has copyright on it. Let me say each one's language is English. Say whatever you like that's english. Do whatever you like that's english. Superior foolish! Is it? But sir, we are English of our land, we can't leave but we are ready to take with us. Much with it we are to go ahead. Some say no mistake in english. Fault finding is also not allowed in our culture. English English English, with it we are to take steps to measure the world. Let us use English as a ladder, Our English, Indian English. Nowhere but everywhere sir. Excuse me for a few words!

2
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TRANSLATIONS OF THE OLDEST RHYMING POEMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

These are translations of some of the oldest rhyming poems in the English language. While the focus is on early English rhyming poems, there is a section on early rhyming poems from other languages at the bottom of this page. The oldest Old English (i.e., Anglo-Saxon) poems did not rhyme, but were alliterative and used repetition of consonant and vowel sounds to create word-music. For example:
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THE RUIN in a Modern English Translation

'The Ruin' is one of the great poems of English antiquity. This modern English translation of one of the very best Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems is followed by footnotes, a summary and analysis, a discussion of the theme, and the translator's comments.
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Shakespeare's birthday seems to be celebrated as World Book Day
And also, as English Language Day if we go through pages of websites;
His birthday can be celebrated so also as he is Father of English,
Though G B Shaw is appreciated as Father of Modern English!
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