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:
- Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Bowl Of Roses by William Ernest Henley
- Tell me not here, it needs not saying poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Ben Nevis: A Dialogue poem – John Keats poems
- Dreamtime by Olivia Lewis
- Work and Play by Ted Hughes
- Eavesdropping myself by Vladimir Marku
- Free Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- In Midnight Sleep. by Walt Whitman
- Johnnie Armstrang poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Высоцкий – Странная сказка
- Владимир Маяковский – Будь готов
- A Song Of Autumn
- Air Of Diabelli’s by Robert Louis Stevenson
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
- Songs of Joy by William Henry Davies
- Seeking Beauty by William Henry Davies
- Sadness and Joy by William Henry Davies
- Rich or Poor by William Henry Davies
- Rich Days by William Henry Davies
- No Master by William Henry Davies
- Nell Barnes by William Henry Davies
- Money by William Henry Davies
- Leisure by William Henry Davies
- Laughing Rose by William Henry Davies
- Joy and Pleasure by William Henry Davies
- William Henry Davies – William Henry Davies
- In the Country by William Henry Davies
- In May by William Henry Davies
- Days Too Short by William Henry Davies
- Come, Let Us Find by William Henry Davies
- Charms by William Henry Davies
- April’s Charms by William Henry Davies
- All in June by William Henry Davies
- Ale by William Henry Davies
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.