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:
- A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- At A Solemn Musick poem – John Milton poems
- Wisdom by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sonnet # 8 by Luis A. Estable
- Владимир Корнилов – Иннокентий Анненский
- O mother, O Merry by Nikunj Sharma
- Vanity Fair by Sylvia Plath
- Aunt Jennifer039s Tigers
- Lines Written In The Highlands After A Visit To Burns’s Country poem – John Keats poems
- Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity poem – John Milton poems
- Years of the Modern. by Walt Whitman
- Наум Коржавин – Нелепые ваши затеи
- Private Property poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Высоцкий – В тайгу
- Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet
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
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- I shall not be a shame by Torm Gardson
- I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Henry Clay’s Mouth by Thomas Lux
- He Has Lived In Many Houses by Thomas Lux
- Gorgeous Surfaces by Thomas Lux
- Gentle Heart, Indulge Thy Dreaming by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Death of the Legend by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux
- A Library Of Skulls by Thomas Lux
- A Lady Aurum by Thriveni Mysore
- A Kiss by Thomas Lux
- “While with fond rapture and amaze” by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- To Mirth by Tobias Smollett
- To Independence by Tobias Smollett
- “To fix her!-’twere a task as vain” by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
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.