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:
- If I could tell you by W. H. Auden
- Epistle to Dr. Blacklock by Robert Burns
- Владимир Степанов – Мышь и кошка
- Doom Of Exiles by Sylvia Plath
- Robert Burns: The Lament: Occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a Friend’s Amour.
- To Sir William Davenant
- Flying Wishes by Osman cisse Hanif
- Зинаида Александрова – Мне рукою машет маленький сынок
- My rat
- Владимир Маяковский – Успокоилась Франция, злобой не пышет… (РОСТА №625)
- Жан де Лафонтен – Язычник и деревянный Идол
- The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman by William Butler Yeats
- Long I Thought that Knowledge. by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: Farewell Song To The Banks Of Ayr: “I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on my road to Greenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.”-R. B.
- zen: a very short history by Raj Arumugam
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
- Suicide Off Egg Rock by Sylvia Plath
- Stars Over The Dordogne by Sylvia Plath
- A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet: To Time by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet To Satan by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet : To Eva by Sylvia Plath
- Song For A Summer’s Day by Sylvia Plath
- Song For A Revolutionary Love by Sylvia Plath
- Soliloquy Of The Solipsist by Sylvia Plath
- Sleep In The Mojave Desert by Sylvia Plath
- Sheep In Fog by Sylvia Plath
- Prologue To Spring by Sylvia Plath
- Poppies In October by Sylvia Plath
- Poppies In July by Sylvia Plath
- Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath
- On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath
- On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad by Sylvia Plath
- On The Decline Of Oracles by Sylvia Plath
- On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover by Sylvia Plath
- On Deck by Sylvia Plath
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.