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 Mysterious Cat by Vachel Lindsay
- Гавриил Державин – Покаяние
- Evening Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Омар Хайям – Долго ль спину придется мне гнуть или нет
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- In September poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Baseball and Writing by Marianne Moore
- An Incantation by Thomas Moore
- Vote Excerpt
- Николай Языков – Подражание псалму
- Robert Burns: Poem On Pastoral Poetry :
- Like the gods. . . by Sappho
- Алексей Жемчужников – Радостные куплеты
- Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry
- In A Time Of Dearth poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- dance of life by Raj Arumugam
- Daddy, daddy, I can’t go to school by Raj Arumugam
- complete text of the discovery of Kama Sutra by Raj Arumugam
- come, sun rays by Raj Arumugam
- come on in, baby by Raj Arumugam
- Come home, sweetheart by Raj Arumugam
- Colbert Report: Australia by Raj Arumugam
- an evening’s music by Raj Arumugam
- ah poor moon by Raj Arumugam
- ah, happy crow by Raj Arumugam
- absent-mindedness; or I Dream of Spices by Raj Arumugam
- a walk in the forest by Raj Arumugam
- a maiden’s broken heart by Raj Arumugam
- a laugh song by Raj Arumugam
- a gentle day by Raj Arumugam
- a delicate beauty along the shore by Raj Arumugam
- Virtuous Love by Rajendra Ojha
- Tidy by Ralph Angel
- The Unsound Utterance by Raju Baruah
- The Storm by Rainbow Reed
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.