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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Тебе тепло?.. (РОСТА №599)
- Владимир Британишский – Меня благословил старик Бажов
- Eclogue:–The ‘Lotments by William Barnes
- Василий Жуковский – Элизиум
- Степан Щипачев – Застольное слово
- Владимир Маяковский – Застрельщики
- Racial Memories of a Chickadee by Todd H. C. Fischer
- Blue Evening by Rupert Brooke
- Иида Дакоцу – Сложено на вечере поэзии хайку в храме Номандзи
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Напоминание
- The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- Before The World Was Made by William Butler Yeats
- Elegy on Stella by Robert Burns
- To Emily Dickinson by Yvor Winters
- Омар Хайям – Кто мне скажет что завтра случится со мной
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
- Paris In Spring by Sara Teasdale
- Over The Roofs by Sara Teasdale
- Only In Sleep by Sara Teasdale
- On The Dunes by Sara Teasdale
- On The Death Of Swinburne by Sara Teasdale
- Oh Day Of Fire And Sun by Sara Teasdale
- Night Song At Amalfi by Sara Teasdale
- Night In Arizona by Sara Teasdale
- New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
- Madeira From The Sea by Sara Teasdale
- Love In Autumn by Sara Teasdale
- Less Than The Cloud To The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow by Sara Teasdale
- In The Train by Sara Teasdale
- In The Metropolitan Museum by Sara Teasdale
- In The End by Sara Teasdale
- Night Song At Amalfi by Sara Teasdale
- In the Carpenter’s Shop by Sara Teasdale
- Night In Arizona by Sara Teasdale
- In Spring, Santa Barbara by Sara Teasdale
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.