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:
- The Lesson by Roger McGough
- Threshold by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Маяковский – Славянский вопрос-то решается просто
- The Smiles Of The Bathers by Weldon Kees
- What these girl means to me by Maphoto selokela
- Across Kansas by William Stafford
- After Midnight by Walid Saba
- Николай Глазков – Про пожары
- Николай Заболоцкий – Зеленый луч
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Билла Сиггера
- A Woman’s Apology poem – Alfred Austin
- The Benefactors Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- To Youth by Robert Herrick
- The Curse Of Cromwell by William Butler Yeats
- Hey birds by Raj Arumugam
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
- Muhammad by Mahmoud Darwish
- Lulu by Manolo Arriola
- Khanaa’s Song by Mallika Sengupta
- In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish
- If Old Men Fought by Mac McGovern
- Identity Card by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Didn’t Apologize to the Well by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Come From There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Belong There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Am There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Want To Write by Margaret Walker
- Hora Cero by Manolo Arriola
- Heaven, an envious home by Mahak Raithatha S
- He Is Calm, and I Am Too by Mahmoud Darwish
- Hate Survives by Mac McGovern
- Halloween by Mac Hammond
- Frijolita by Manolo Arriola
- FREEDOM by Mac McGovern
- For Life and Death of a Poet by Marcin Malek
- FLORECER by Manolo Arriola
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.