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:
- The Sun Underfoot Among The Sundews poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Crazy Jane Reproved by William Butler Yeats
- AUTUMN GRAPES by Önder Kurt
- Optimist poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Языков – Элегия (Есть много всяких мук – и много я их знаю)
- La Nuit Blanche by Rudyard Kipling
- Conversation with Comrade Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- The Garden by Abraham Cowley
- Spring In War Time by Sara Teasdale
- They Did Not Expect This by Vernon Scannell
- Epitaph on a noted coxcomb by Robert Burns
- A Narrow Girdle Of Rough Stones And Crags, by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Маяковский – О том, как некие сектантцы зовут рабочего на танцы
- Most Sweet it is by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: I Hae a Wife O’ My Ain:
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
- Cologne by Paul Celan
- Canal Bank Walk by Patrick Kavanagh
- Brooklyn Narcissus by Paul Blackburn
- Braga by Walid Saba
- Bistro Memories by P.J.Reed
- Bicycle Ride by Pat Mullan
- AUTUMN GRAPES by Önder Kurt
- Autumn by P. K. Page
- And Then It Rained by Pamela Griffiths
- Alameda by Paul Blackburn
- After Rain by P. K. Page
- Advent by Patrick Kavanagh
- Adolescence by P. K. Page
- Addiction by Walid Saba
- A Silent Song by Pamela Griffiths
- A Crimson Carpet by Pamela Griffiths
- A Cat Called Shan by Pamela Griffiths
- Your Words by Piera Chen
- Your souls are ours by Philo Ikonya
- You Are Mine by Pushpendra Singh Baghel
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.