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:
- Protest poem by Susan King Saunders
- Федор Сологуб – Знаю знанием последним
- The Dead by Sylvia Plath
- Happy Victory Day – May 9, 2022
- what I want to know by Raj Arumugam
- Love Flower
- The Crescent Moon poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Pity For Poor Africans by William Cowper
- Last Words poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Kiss by Ruth Padel
- Confessions of a Software Engineer by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Дафнис подслушивает сов
- Владимир Британишский – Калмыцкое побережье Каспия
- one_almost_might.html
- Ballade Of Dead Ladies poem – Andrew Lang 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
- The Gardener XIX: You Walked by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXXXIV: Over the Green by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXXXIII: She Dwelt on the Hillside by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXXXI: Why Do You Whisper So Faintly by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXXVI: The Fair Was On by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXXV: At Midnight by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXVIII: None Lives For Ever, Brother by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXIX: I Hunt for the Golden Stag by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LXIV: I Spent My Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LIX: O Woman by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener LI: Then Finish the Last Song by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener IV: Ah Me by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Further Bank by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Flower-School by Rabindranath Tagore
- The First Jasmines by Rabindranath Tagore
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.