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:
- Lines to John M’Murdo of Drumlanrig by Robert Burns
- Idylls of the King: The Marriage of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Leto and Niobe by Sappho
- Fairy Land ii by William Shakespeare
- Christmas Oratio by W H Auden
- Song—A Waukrife Minnie by Robert Burns
- The Voice by Sara Teasdale
- The Buddhist poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Rimer poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Raise the head, child by Vinko Kalinić
- Омар Хайям – Когда под утренней росой дрожит тюльпан
- The Dark Hour by William Henry Davies
- Ольга Берггольц – Потеряла я вечером слово
- Валерий Брюсов – К Армении
- The Illusion of Love by Sarojini Naidu
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
- Такахама Кёси – Ливень прошел
- Такахама Кёси – Кончик трости моей
- Такахама Кёси – Кажется мне
- Такахама Кёси – Как ярко сияет
- Такахама Кёси – Как никогда
- Такахама Кёси – Иокогама в утро моего возвращения из Франции
- Такахама Кёси – Грущу о былом
- Такахама Кёси – Драчливые петухи
- Такахама Кёси – Давнишний приятель
- Степан Щипачев – Зрение
- Степан Щипачев – Жил мальчик в деревне
- Степан Щипачев – Застольное слово
- Степан Щипачев – За селом синел далекий лес
- Степан Щипачев – Высота
- Степан Щипачев – У моря
- Степан Щипачев – Тебе
- Степан Щипачев – Свет звезды
- Степан Щипачев – Соловей
- Степан Щипачев – Шар земной
- Степан Щипачев – Ровеснику
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.