Best Modern English Poems

I can't believeth all the things I seeth:
the streets with such strange vehicles which wend
their way so apace liketh those gents fleeth
as metal lions. ...

Read more of this work...

Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart...

Read more of this work...

Comin Thro the Rye
by Robert Burns
modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
 
Oh, Jenny's all wet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She's draggin' all her petticoats
Comin' through...

Read more of this work...

THE PERSPECTIVE OF ALABASTER SCROOGE

In modern English people time, when the world was full of eminent joy, there lived a man of prestige who was...

Read more of this work...

Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest...

Read more of this work...

WHEN TEARS TOUCH II

Sitting lax,
Speakers on ears:

"(You should know better)
Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(You should see why)
Dropped in the state of...

Read more of this work...

Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have seemed deeply profound
and we...

Read more of this work...

This is my modern English translation of Paul Valéry's poem “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”). Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery...

Read more of this work...

The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the...

Read more of this work...

Banks o' Doon
by Robert Burns
modern English translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, banks and hills of lovely Doon,
How can you bloom so fresh and fair;
How can...

Read more of this work...

Call me a dreamer,
Maybe even a misfit believer
I guess sometimes my head gets to far in the clouded atmosphere 
So far, to far...I think of...

Read more of this work...

These are my modern English translations of sonnets by the French poet Stephane Mallarme.

The Tomb of Edgar Poe
by Stéphane Mallarmé
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Transformed...

Read more of this work...

Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If...

Read more of this work...

ALLAMA IQBAL TRANSLATIONS INTO MODERN ENGLISH



Excerpt from Rumuz-e bikhudi (“The Mysteries of Selflessness”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a candle...

Read more of this work...

rhythmic structure of a verse
 study of metre prosody
patterns of syllables of types
stressed syllables at regular interval
qualitative
long short short dactyl
long long spondee in dead classics
alexandrine...

Read more of this work...