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:
- AN ODE FOR BEN JONSON by Robert Herrick
- I Had To Leave by Subhash Misra
- The January Birds by Maurice Riordan
- Psalm 88 poem – John Milton poems
- For what’s worth breathing by Rixa White
- The Breast by Russell Edson
- The Actor by Preeth Nambiar
- Nailing by Mike Yuan
- Lost Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Winter Landscape, With Rooks by Sylvia Plath
- Leaving Early by Sylvia Plath
- Debt by Sara Teasdale
- The Story of Uriah by Rudyard Kipling
- Meant To Be by Russ Pergram
- Sonnet. On Leigh Hunt’s Poem ‘The Story of Rimini’ poem – John Keats 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
- Today by Satish Verma
- TIRELESSLY by Satish Verma
- THE WHEELS by Satish Verma
- THE WAX PALACE by Satish Verma
- THE WARS by Satish Verma
- THE MOSAIC by Satish Verma
- The Fall by Satish Verma
- That Is by Satish Verma
- Tall Claims by Satish Verma
- Taking On by Satish Verma
- Taking Off by Satish Verma
- SURVIVAL by Satish Verma
- STUNNED by Satish Verma
- STRIPED NOTHINGS by Satish Verma
- Stray Colors by Satish Verma
- STRANGE HAPPENINGS by Satish Verma
- STONEWASHED by Satish Verma
- STEPPING OUT by Satish Verma
- SOVEREIGNTY by Satish Verma
- Song Of Unquiet Spirit by Satish Verma
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.