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:
- A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson
- Юлия Друнина – Я не привыкла
- Николай Заболоцкий – Засуха
- The Everlasting Voices by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Корнилов – Черный день
- Batty by Shel Silverstein
- Sonet 51 by William Alexander
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, граждане, берегите воду!.. (Главполитпросвет №249)
- Child’s Park Stones by Sylvia Plath
- A Song of Kabir by Rudyard Kipling
- Contraptions by Satish Verma
- Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 11 – The last and greatest herald by William Drummond
- Sonnet 35: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done by William Shakespeare
- Olney Hymn 57: The New Convert by William Cowper
- Two Months by Rudyard Kipling
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
- Sixteen Dead Men by William Butler Yeats
- Shepherd And Goatherd by William Butler Yeats
- September 1913 by William Butler Yeats
- Sailing To Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- Running To Paradise by William Butler Yeats
- Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
- Responsibilities; Introduction by William Butler Yeats
- The Hosting Of The Sidhe by William Butler Yeats
- The Host Of The Air by William Butler Yeats
- The Heart Of The Woman by William Butler Yeats
- The Hawk by William Butler Yeats
- The Happy Townland by William Butler Yeats
- The Gyres by William Butler Yeats
- The Grey Rock by William Butler Yeats
- The Ghost Of Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
- The Fool By The Roadside by William Butler Yeats
- The Folly Of Being Comforted by William Butler Yeats
- The Fisherman by William Butler Yeats
- The Fish by William Butler Yeats
- The Fiddler Of Dooney 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.