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:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё с себя снимаю, слишком душно
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Нилу
- Sonnet CXI by William Shakespeare
- I see the Four-fold Man by William Blake
- O Daedalus, Fly Away Home by Robert Hayden
- On King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester by Thomas Warton
- Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Dans les filets de midi by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Soldier an’ Sailor Too by Rudyard Kipling
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Гавриил Державин – Жуковскому и Родзянке, приславшим с большими похвалами автору перевод его оды «Бог» на французском языке
- Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen by William Butler Yeats
- The Ineffectual Dives by Shahida Latif
- Linoz Isidoz poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- life begins tomorrow 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
- Will Remain Unseen by Vasil Slavov
- Vietnam Vet befriends an immigrant in Pittsburgh, Pa – ( let’s put it that way ) by Vasil Slavov
- To Somebody Out There by Vashti Trisawati Abhidana
- The Blessed Birth by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Sweet Colonnade by Vasil Slavov
- Shadow Of Liberty by Vattacharja Chandan
- Sea of lavender ( 4 pre-summer poems ) by Vasil Slavov
- No LOVE by venkatesh.valusa
- My life – “An ambiguous journey” by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Let Me Tide Over by Vattacharja Chandan
- Kite by Vattacharja Chandan
- Immortal Indian Legend by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Had Something To Say by Vattacharja Chandan
- Deity of my dreams by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Confession by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Bulgarian Lullaby by Vasil Slavov
- At the bottom by Vasil Slavov
- Wife Killer by Vernon Scannell
- Where Shall We Go? by Vernon Scannell
- Walking Wounded by Vernon Scannell
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.