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:
- To Be of Use by Marge Piercy
- Николай Некрасов – Детство
- Выхожу один я на дорогу – Лермонтов: Стихотворение, читать текст стиха Михаила Лермонтова – Poetry Monster
- Олег Бундур – Папа пристал
- Tides by Sara Teasdale
- Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed
- Владимир Маяковский – Реклама, 1928
- The Spring-Time, O The Spring–Time poem – Alfred Austin
- Валерий Брюсов – И вдруг все станет так понятно
- Coal-Truck by T. Wignesan
- Владислав Ходасевич – Ночь
- Love And Death by Sara Teasdale
- Зинаида Александрова – Давайте, девочки, купаться
- That Summer by Nijole Miliauskaite
- The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney
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
- Slant by Stephen Dunn
- Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn
- Named by Stephen Dunn
- Landscape At The End Of The Century by Stephen Dunn
- I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by Stephen Dunn
- Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn
- Biography In The First Person by Stephen Dunn
- At The Smithville Methodist Church by Stephen Dunn
- Allegory Of The Cave by Stephen Dunn
- The White Peacock by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Quality of Courage by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Innovator by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Hemp by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The General Public by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Fiddling Wood by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The City Revisited by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Breaking Point by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Talk by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Road and Hills by Stephen Vincent Benet
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.