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:
- little Sara’s sleep by Raj Arumugam
- Владимир Орлов – Добрый день
- Poor Honest Men by Rudyard Kipling
- Colin Instructed by Thomas Chatterton
- An Acre Of Grass by William Butler Yeats
- let’s go mummy by Raj Arumugam
- When I Came Last to Ludlow poem – A. E. Housman
- How Long by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Robin Hood And The Butcher poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher’s Tragi-Comedy ‘The Fair Maid of the Inn’ poem – John Keats poems
- Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer by William Cowper
- The Seven Of Pentacles by Marge Piercy
- Appeal by Ndue Ukaj
- Admonition by William Wordsworth
- To Dorothy by Marvin Bell
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
- You are coming! by Preeth Nambiar
- Wish If You…! by Praveen Parasar
- When the universe speaks by Preeth Nambiar
- WATER LILLIES AND ADVICE by PEGGY AYLSWORTH
- Waking up on a rainy morning by Preeth Nambiar
- Wake Oslo up again by Philo Ikonya
- Towards The sky by Pushpendra Singh Baghel
- To Double Lock by Pierre Reverdy
- The way aboard by Preeth Nambiar
- The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille
- The Survivor by Primo Levi
- The Search by Pornika Ganguly
- The Magic by Preeth Nambiar
- The Love! by Praveen Parasar
- The Last Letter by Priyanka Tungana
- The Fragrance of life by Preeth Nambiar
- The Deeper Shadow by Pierre Reverdy
- The Actor by Preeth Nambiar
- That Light by Paul Hostovsky
- Termites by Piera Chen
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.