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:
- Along the field as we came poem – A. E. Housman
- Михаил Кузмин – В легкой лени
- The Dug-Out by Siegfried Sassoon
- Endymion: Book II poem – John Keats poems
- Gravelly Run poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Алексей Плещеев – Есть дни, ни злоба, ни любовь
- Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Владимир Высоцкий – Переворот в мозгах из края в край
- Wednesday by Marvin Bell
- Darkness poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- I’m not listening by Rashmi Sreekumar
- София Парнок – Рондель
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Маяковский – Что сделать, чтоб Всероссийский съезд Советов… (РОСТА №662)
- Robert Burns: Here’s A Health To Them That’s Awa:
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
- France, the 18th year of These States. by Walt Whitman
- For Him I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- Fast Anchor’d, Eternal, O Love. by Walt Whitman
- Facing West from California’s Shores. by Walt Whitman
- Faces. by Walt Whitman
- Excelsior. by Walt Whitman
- Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States. by Walt Whitman
- Ethiopia Saluting the Colors. by Walt Whitman
- Elemental Drifts. by Walt Whitman
- Eidólons. by Walt Whitman
- Earth! my Likeness! by Walt Whitman
- Drum-Taps. by Walt Whitman
- Dresser, The. by Walt Whitman
- Dirge for Two Veterans. by Walt Whitman
- Despairing Cries. by Walt Whitman
- Delicate Cluster. by Walt Whitman
- Debris. by Walt Whitman
- Darest Thou Now, O Soul. by Walt Whitman
- Dalliance of the Eagles, The. by Walt Whitman
- Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. by Walt Whitman
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.