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:
- Nailing by Mike Yuan
- Sonnet Ix
- Laws for Creations. by Walt Whitman
- You Say You Love poem – John Keats poems
- An Afternoon by Raymond Carver
- Sonnet 20 poem – John Milton poems
- PLEADING by Satish Verma
- Prelude by Shaunna Harper
- Robert Burns: Young Peggy Blooms:
- gum tree loved by the sky by Raj Arumugam
- The Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No by Shel Silverstein
- Einstein Defining Special Relativity poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? by Thomas Hardy
- The Captain by Stevens Cadet
- A character of it’s own by Sylvan Lightbourne
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
- happiness.html
- At the Zoo poem – A. A. Milne poem
- Vestiges poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- The Flash Reverses Time poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Que Sera Sera poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Old Boy poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- Einstein Defining Special Relativity poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- A Tempest in a Teacup poem – A. Van Jordan poems | Poetry Monster
- A Tempest in a Teacup poem – A. Van Jordan poems | Best Poems
- In Memoriam
- Taylor Swift
- Wisdom in Love by Lutfi Abdallah a.k.a Laso
- Why I Do Not Miss You! by Praveen Parasar
- Weaving waves by Shailendra Singh
- Trademark by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Time Well-Served by Luis Estable
- This I Beg To Have by Luis Estable
- The True Lover by A. E. Housman
- The Song of My Heart by Olawuyi Mutiu
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.