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:
- Robert Burns: Thou Gloomy December :
- A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux
- Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Ruins Of Time by Robert Lowell
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Fragment poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Don’t know the answer by Vinko Kalinic
- Вероника Тушнова – Утро (Вся ночь без сна)
- Dawn by Rupert Brooke
- These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
- Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show by Sir Philip Sidney
- Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan by William Shakespeare
- Rosslyn To The Prime Minister by Graham Rowlands
- Валерий Брюсов – Голубое, голубое
- Ladies And Gentlemen In Outer Space by Ron Padgett
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
- Love Sonnet LIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXXI poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXVII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXIX poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XL poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood X poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood VIII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Sonnet Of Motherhood VI poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Memory poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XXXV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XXVIII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XXVI poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XXIX poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XXI poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XVII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XLIX poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XLIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Love Sonnet XLII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
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.