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:
- In Tempore Senectutis poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- Robert Burns: To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough:
- Signals by Walid Saba
- Some Say by Mark Miller
- The Remains by Mark Strand
- Эмиль Верхарн – Восстание
- Tenuous And Precarious by Stevie Smith
- Вера Павлова – Зеркало по природе правдиво
- Sonnet # 6 by Luis A. Estable
- At The Cenotaph by Siegfried Sassoon
- Олег Григорьев – Я дверь в коридор отворил
- Ольга Берггольц – Приятелям
- Ballade Of Blind Love poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Broccoli by Rina Ferrarelli
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 house where I was born (10) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (09) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (08) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (07) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (06) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (05) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (04) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (03) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (02) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The house where I was born (01) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The Hawthorn Tree by Willa Cather
- Street In Packingtown by Willa Sibert Cather
- Spanish Johnny by Willa Sibert Cather
- Poppies on Ludlow Castle by Willa Cather
- Paradox by Willa Cather
- London Roses by Willa Cather
- Passer-By, These Are Words by Yves Bonnefoy
- Arcadian Winter by Willa Cather
- Once A Great Love by Yehuda Amichai
- On Rabbi Kook’s Street by Yehuda Amichai
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.