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:
- Sonnet Xvi Who Shall Invoke Her
- Иван Мятлев – Звезда
- Passion Of My Heart by Stevens Cadet
- What the People Said by Rudyard Kipling
- Михаил Кузмин – Возможно ль: скоро четверть века
- Владимир Британишский – Тверь
- On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath
- The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
- I Loved
- The Gardener LI: Then Finish the Last Song by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Flower Garden At Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire. by William Wordsworth
- Robinson by Weldon Kees
- A Single Man
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
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
- Merging, Emerging by Shahida Latif
- Men by Maya Angelou
- Little Clock by T. Wignesan
- Let me Count the Poets Left by Michael K. Shiu
- Last Turn Of The Morning Carousel/Forever Turn The Midnight Carousel by Matthew Abuelo
- kaleidoscopic whorled wide web. by matthew scott harris
- Kailangan ko’y Yakap by Melissa Sazon Flores
- It Asked a Crumb of Me by Michael K. Shiu
- Insomniac by Maya Angelou
- initial mother’s day eve by matthew scott harris
- In the Park by Maxine Kumin
- Illusion by Mercedes Madrigal
- I Know From my Bed by Michael Lee Johnson
- Humankind – How Limitless In Genius by Michael Levy
- How Am I? by Matt Bohart
- Haunted by you by Melissa Skelton
- Forced by Mayank Sharma
- Forbidden Fruit by Michael Lally
- Follies of War by Michael Levy
- Eve- Song by Mary Gilmore
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.