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:
- By The Fire-Side by Robert Browning
- O What Is That Sound by W H Auden
- Dumb poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Василий Казин – Письмо
- Sir Philip Sidney; Astrophel and Stella: XXIII by Sir Philip Sidney
- I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- What Being in Rank-Old Nature poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In Imitation of E. of Rochester : On Silence poem – Alexander Pope
- Blue Glass by Ross D Tyler
- STEPPING OUT by Satish Verma
- Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows by William Shakespeare
- The Dunciad: Book IV poem – Alexander Pope
- I have been tricked by flying too close by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Velocity Of Money poem – Allen Ginsberg
- An Epitaph 3 (From The Greek) by William Cowper
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
- Ольга Берггольц – Озерный край
- Ольга Берггольц – Ответ
- Ольга Берггольц – От сердца к сердцу
- Ольга Берггольц – Осень (Мне осень озёрного края)
- Ольга Берггольц – Она дарить любила
- Ольга Берггольц – Огонь, и воду, и медные трубы
- Ольга Берггольц – Обещание
- Ольга Берггольц – О, наверное, он не вернётся
- Ольга Берггольц – О, где ты запела
- Ольга Берггольц – О да, простые, бедные слова
- Ольга Берггольц – Новогодний тост
- Ольга Берггольц – Ни до серебряной и ни до золотой
- Ольга Берггольц – Не знаю, не знаю, живу
- Ольга Берггольц – Не сына, не младшего брата
- Ольга Берггольц – Не может быть, чтоб жили мы напрасно
- Ольга Берггольц – Наш сад
- Ольга Берггольц – Нам от тебя теперь не оторваться
- Ольга Берггольц – Надежда
- Ольга Берггольц – На Ивана-пьющего
- Ольга Берггольц – Моя медаль
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.