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:
- Alone poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Нина Веселова – Жена
- Вера Павлова – Покамест я всем детям тётя
- Prelude by Shaunna Harper
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Sonet 34 by William Alexander
- Elegy poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Blue-Butterfly Day by Robert Frost
- Before the Altar poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Куплеты нечистой силы
- Christian poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Комета
- I did not want to stop you by Luz del Alba Nicola
- Blue eyes by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Zellen Woone’s Honey To Buy Zome’hat Sweet by William Barnes
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
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Be Not a War Poet by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Why the Young Men Are So Ugly by Tony Hoagland
- V by Tony Harrison
- Turns by Tony Harrison
- The Change by Tony Hoagland
- Special Problems in Vocabulary by Tony Hoagland
- Requests for Toy Piano by Tony Hoagland
- Reasons to Survive November by Tony Hoagland
- Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet by Tony Hoagland
- Quiet by Tony Hoagland
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.