A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
Year after year the princess lies asleep
Until the hundred years foretold are done,
Easily drawing her enchanted breath.
Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep,
Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one
Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath.
But when the Destined Lover at last shall come,
For whom alone Fortune reserves the prize
The thorns give way; he mounts the cobwebbed stair
Unerring he finds the tower, the door, the room,
The bed where, waking at his kiss she lies
Smiling in the loose fragrance of her hair.
That night, embracing on the bed of state,
He ravishes her century of sleep
And she repays the debt of that long dream;
Future and Past compose their vast debate;
His seed now sown, her harvest ripe to reap
Enact a variation on the theme.
For in her womb another princess waits,
A sleeping cell, a globule of bright dew.
Jostling their way up that mysterious stair,
A horde of lovers bursts between the gates,
All doomed but one, the destined suitor, who
By luck first reaches her and takes her there.
A parable of all we are or do!
The life of Nature is a formal dance
In which each step is ruled by what has been
And yet the pattern emerges always new
The marriage of linked cause and random chance
Gives birth perpetually to the unforeseen.
One parable for the body and the mind:
With science and heredity to thank
The heart is quite predictable as a pump,
But, let love change its beat, the choice is blind.
‘Now’ is a cross-roads where all maps prove blank,
And no one knows which way the cat will jump.
So here stand I, by birth a cross between
Determined pattern and incredible chance,
Each with an equal share in what I am.
Though I should read the code stored in the gene,
Yet the blind lottery of circumstance
Mocks all solutions to its cryptogram.
As in my flesh, so in my spirit stand I
When does this hundred years draw to its close?
The hedge of thorns before me gives no clue.
My predecessor’s carcass, shrunk and dry,
Stares at me through the spikes. Oh well, here goes!
I have this thing, and only this, to do.
A few random poems:
- The Lamentation of David Over Saul and Jonathan by William Somervile
- Михаил Лермонтов – Блистая, пробегают облака
- Sea of lavender ( 4 pre-summer poems ) by Vasil Slavov
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
- Instead of farewell by Vinko Kalinić
- A Tale of Starvation poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Е. А. Карлгоф
- Infinite Journey by Pawan Kumar
- For The Future by Wendell Berry
- Robert Burns: It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonie Face:
- 我被包围了
- Вероника Тушнова – Люблю
- Олег Бундур – Чайковский
- Others, I Am Not the First poem – A. E. Housman
- Effigy Of A Nun by Sara Teasdale
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
- Leaving and Leaving You by Sophie Hannah
- If It Were Beginning by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Hypatia by Stanley Wilkin
- Homosexuality by Spencer Reece
- Highway to Happiness by Stacey Chillemi
- High school crush……lonesome awaits by Stephen Allen
- God’s Abdication by Snowdon King
- Family by Stacey Chillemi
- Everything He Did, He Did In Jest by stanley wilkin
- Entropy by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Disconnect by Snowdon King
- Crazy Insane by Stephen Sweitzer
- By the Dusk – Ao Entardecer by Soaroir de Campos
- By Garpal Stream by Stanley Wilkin
- Buddha’s Laugh by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Beautiful Moroccan by Stanley Wilkin
- Ambrosia by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Alternate Destination by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Adaptation by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- A Veterans Memories Breeze By In the Wind by Stacey Chillemi
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.