A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
What did I study in your School of Night?
When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes
Opened your body to be my book, I read
My answers there and learned the spell aright,
Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess
What spirits it raised nor where their questions led.
Those others, familiar tenants of your sleep,
The whisperers, the grave somnambulists
Whose eyes turn in to scrutinize their woe,
The giant who broods above the nightmare steep,
That sleeping girl, shuddering, with clenched fists,
A vampire baby suckling at her toe,
They taught me most. The scholar held his pen
And watched his blood drip thickly on the page
To form a text in unknown characters
Which, as I scanned them, changed and changed again:
The lines grew bars, the bars a Delphic cage
And I the captive of his magic verse.

A few random poems:
- Conversation 4: On Place by Rosmarie Waldrop
- Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Hearth Eternal by Vachel Lindsay
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso
- Madeira From The Sea by Sara Teasdale
- Жан де Лафонтен – Утопленница
- Владимир Корнилов – Одиссей
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- The Secrets Of Divine Love Are To Be Kept by William Cowper
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Валерий Брюсов – Годы в былом
- Virginibus Puerisque
- Life Of a Broke Person by Russell James
- The Thin People by Sylvia Plath
- XIII: Some Verses: On A Report On The Death Of The Author by William Alexander
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
- Orlando Furioso Canto 12 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 11 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 10 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 1 by Ludovico Ariosto
- On The High Pedestal by Shahida Latif
- No quise detenerte by Luz del Alba Nicola
- Memo to my Spouse by Adeola Ikuomola
- Love Poem by Aditya Kumar
- Love by Shahida Latif
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- La Greatest by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Kiss Me Again by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Is It True! by Luis Estable
- In Our Time by Michael D Wentworth
- I love you by Inganathi Ntantiso
- I did not want to stop you by Luz del Alba Nicola
- I Call Your Name In My Heart by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- I Ask Someone To Resolve by Shahida Latif
- I Am Just Saying! by Luis Estable
- Here I would have loved you by Luz del Alba Nicola
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.