A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
This was the gods’ god,
The leashed divinity,
Divine divining rod
And Me within the me.
By mindlight tower and tree
Its shadow on the ground
Throw, and in darkness she
Whose weapon is her wound
Fends off the knife, the sword,
The Tiger and the Snake;
It stalks the virgin’s bed
And bites her wide awake.
Her Bab-el-Mandeb waits
Her Red Sea gate of tears:
The blood-sponge god dilates,
His rigid pomp appears;
Sets in the toothless mouth
A tongue of prophecy.
It speaks in naked Truth
Indifference for me
Love, a romantic slime
That lubricates his way
Against the stream of Time.
And though I win the day
His garrisons deep down
Ignore my victory,
Abandon this doomed town,
Crawl through a sewer and flee.
A certain triumph, of course,
Bribes me with brief joy:
Stiffly my Wooden Horse
Receive into your Troy.
A few random poems:
- The Ghost Of Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
- To Thee, Old Cause! by Walt Whitman
- No Master by William Henry Davies
- In Memory of Sigmund Freud by W. H. Auden
- What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry
- Columns by Rudyard Kipling
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Нилу
- Broccoli by Rina Ferrarelli
- Яков Полонский – А. Н. Майкову (ответ на стихи его: Полонский! Суждено опять судьбою злою)
- dear owl, forlorn like King Lear by Raj Arumugam
- The Sun Was Slumbering in the West by Thomas Hood
- Numb by Stephenie Tucker
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Распутие
- Омар Хайям – Небо кушак, что облек изнуренный мой стан
- Оливер Голдсмит – Опровержение логики
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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.