A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.
Year after year a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.
And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest,
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart’s possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.
The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Blows a cool air from moorland scarps of stone.
And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger;
That delicate voice, more urgent with despair,
Custom and fear constraining her no longer,
Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air.
A vanishing speck in those inane dominions,
Single and frail, uncertain of her place,
Alone in the bright host of her companions,
Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space.
She feels it close now, the appointed season;
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies.
Try as she will, the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign;
Immense,complex contours of hills and rivers
Mock her small wisdom with their vast design.
The darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.
A few random poems:
- Leave This by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: Of A’ The Airts The Wind Can Blaw:
- Two Campers In Cloud Country by Sylvia Plath
- Николай Тихонов – Как след от весла
- Robert Burns: Inscription For An Altar Of Independence: At Kerroughtree, the Seat of Mr. Heron.
- Василий Жуковский – К мимо пролетавшему гению
- Владимир Корнилов – Нищий
- With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn
- Transcended Land Of Love by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Crawling At Sea by Vaishnavi Prakash
- America To Great Britain by Washington Allston
- Le Christianisme by Wilfred Owen
- Physically Hearted
- The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
- Matter For Gratitude poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Welcome A.O.H. Men by Michael McGovern
- Weekend Glory by Maya Angelou
- Twilight Acts of Decadence. by Michael Levy
- Travel to Infinite Places by Michael Levy
- To A Cricket by Michael McGovern
- The Woods At Night by May Swenson
- The Waradgery Tribe by Mary Gilmore
- The Rock Cries Out to Us Today by Maya Angelou
- The Passing of Stumpy Shore by Mervyn John Webster
- The Mothering Blackness by Maya Angelou
- The Meaning of Music by Mercedes Madrigal
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- The January Birds by Maurice Riordan
- The Hermit Goes Up Attic by Maxine Kumin
- The Gravy Train by Michael Levy
- The Fishermen, The Gulls & The Bible People by Michael Estabrook
- The First Thrush by Mary Gilmore
- The Fairies Break Their Dances by A. E. Housman
- The Burning Crusade by Memphis Knight
- The Rolling Mills by Michael McGovern
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.