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:
- Misery And Splendor by Robert Hass
- Шекспир – Пример тебе подобной красоты – Сонет 84
- Say, Lad, Have You Things to Do? poem – A. E. Housman
- Fragment poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Art Therapy and Loss
- София Парнок – Газэлы
- Федор Сологуб – Ах, лягушки по дорожке
- Autumn Song by Sarojini Naidu
- Song—Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel by Robert Burns
- Шекспир – Как и любовь – Сонет 151
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 23.1. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Олег Бундур – Разногласия
- Inscription to Jessie Lewars by Robert Burns
- Николай Заболоцкий – Последняя любовь
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Два клада
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 Blessed by William Butler Yeats
- The Black Tower by William Butler Yeats
- The Balloon Of The Mind by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of The Foxhunter by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Moll Magee by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Father O’Hart by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Father Gilligan by William Butler Yeats
- The Arrow by William Butler Yeats
- The Apparitions by William Butler Yeats
- That The Night Come by William Butler Yeats
- Symbols by William Butler Yeats
- Swift’s Epitaph by William Butler Yeats
- Sweet Dancer by William Butler Yeats
- Supernatural Songs by William Butler Yeats
- Stream And Sun At Glendalough by William Butler Yeats
- Statistics by William Butler Yeats
- Spilt Milk by William Butler Yeats
- Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower’ by William Butler Yeats
- Solomon To Sheba by William Butler Yeats
- Solomon And The Witch by William Butler Yeats
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.