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:
- Олег Григорьев – Полосатая оса
- Аля Кудряшева – Трилогия перед годом (Цепочка ассоциаций)
- Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Robert Burns: Braw Lads O’ Galla Water:
- Степан Щипачев – Зрение
- Guenevere by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Солоухин – В лесу
- Robert Burns: Epistle To Davie, A Brother Poet:
- Карл Сэндберг – Джаз-фантазия
- Hope Holds to Christ poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Роза и дева
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, онанисты, кричите «Ура!»
- A Writer’s Pen by Sahiti Siddharth
- Sonnet 06
- Psalm 07 poem – John Milton poems
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
- Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 2: East Coker by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
- Dans le Restaurant by T. S. Eliot
- Cousin Nancy by T. S. Eliot
- Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
- Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town by T. S. Eliot
- Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
- Aunt Helen by T. S. Eliot
- Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot
- A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
- Woman by Tala Bar
- Walk with Me by Tammy L Ames
- Today’s News by Ted Berrigan
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- The Soundless Ocean by Tanmoy
- The Poet by Thom Douglas Carlisle
- The Narrative by Talha Jafri
- The Garden by Tammy L. Ames
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.