A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.

A few random poems:
- Владимир Маяковский – Богомольное
- Song-Books of the War by Siegfried Sassoon
- Иван Мятлев – Розы
- The Beam In Grenley Church by William Barnes
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Awed by her splendor by Sappho
- Robert Burns: No Churchman Am I:
- Jewels Should Sparkle Daily by Ronald G. Auguste
- Алексей Толстой – Слепой
- What Being in Rank-Old Nature poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Spring-Time, O The Spring–Time poem – Alfred Austin
- Hope A-Left Behind by William Barnes
- Юрий Верховский – Месяцу, заре, звезде, лазури
- Владимир Высоцкий – Наброски песен к несостоявшемуся спектаклю по сказкам Шергина
- Юрий Коринец – Дедовский подарок
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
- Muse poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Morpheus poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Lyric written in 1830 poem – Alexander Pushkin
- I’ve Lived To See Desire Vanish poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Impromtu On Ogareva poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Imitation poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Goblins Of The Steppes poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Goblins Of The Steppes poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Friendship poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Don’t Ask Me Why poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Devils poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Day’s Rain Is Done poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Confession (to Alina Osipova, 1826) poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Bound for your distant home poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Boris Godunov poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Arion poem – Alexander Pushkin
- An Invocation poem – Alexander Pushkin
- An Elegy poem – Alexander Pushkin
- A Little Bird poem – Alexander Pushkin
- A Winter Evening poem – Alexander Pushkin
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
Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.