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:
- Power of Peace by Rixa White
- The Tree Of Song by Sara Teasdale
- The Ballad of the King’s Jest by Rudyard Kipling
- Николай Гумилев – Лесной пожар
- Fairyland by Rabindranath Tagore
- Letter to my father by Preeth Nambiar
- Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss by Sylvia Plath
- Федор Тютчев – Как верно здравый смысл народа
- Владимир Орлов – Дядя Миша на печи
- I a soul by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- O the Chimneys by Nelly Sachs
- Locked Out by Robert Frost
- Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all by William Shakespeare
- Ode–Shell The Old City! Shell! by William Gilmore Simms
- The More Loving One by W. H. Auden
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
- Стефан Малларме – Подавленное тучей
- Стефан Малларме – Отходит кружево опять
- Стефан Малларме – О, зеркало
- Стефан Малларме – Милостыня
- Стефан Малларме – Гробница Эдгара По
- Стефан Малларме – Ее ногтей ожив, что ожил из пароса
- Стефан Малларме – Дар поэмы
- Станислав Востоков – Стой, кто идёт
- Станислав Востоков – Не хочется отцу и маме
- Станислав Востоков – Не умею
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Я для песни задушевной
- Спиридон Дрожжин – В деревне
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Свети мне, солнышко
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Смерть коня-пахаря
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Рожь
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Песня пахаря
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Первая борозда
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Люблю я сельский мой приют
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Из поэмы “Дуняша”
- София Парнок – В земле бесплодной не взойти зерну
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.