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:
- Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic by William Wordsworth
- Юлия Друнина – Ветер с фронта
- Алишер Навои – Кипарис подобен розе увлажненной
- M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School–Detroit, 1942 by Philip Levine
- Юлия Жадовская – Ах, бабушкин сад
- Of Love and All by Raja Mannar
- Prisoner by Rabindranath Tagore
- The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond
- Валерий Брюсов – Голубое, голубое
- A June-Tide Echo poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Ни знахарство, ни благодать бога в болезни не подмога
- One Step Backward Taken by Robert Frost
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- Юнна Мориц – О жизни, о жизни
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 English Flag by Rudyard Kipling
- The Egg-Shell by Rudyard Kipling
- The ‘eathen by Rudyard Kipling
- The Dove of Dacca by Rudyard Kipling
- The Destroyers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Derelict by Rudyard Kipling
- The Deep-Sea Cables by Rudyard Kipling
- The Declaration of London by Rudyard Kipling
- The Dead King by Rudyard Kipling
- The Day’s Work by Rudyard Kipling
- The Craftsman by Rudyard Kipling
- The Conundrum of the Workshops by Rudyard Kipling
- The Comforters by Rudyard Kipling
- The Coastwise Lights by Rudyard Kipling
- The Children’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- The Captive by Rudyard Kipling
- The Burial by Rudyard Kipling
- The Broken Men by Rudyard Kipling
- The Betrothed by Rudyard Kipling
- The Benefactors by Rudyard Kipling
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.