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:
- Riposte to the Bard: Sonnet 130 remade in my lady’s image by Neil Outar
- Robert Burns: :
- The Gladness of Nature by William Cullen Bryant
- Broken Love by William Blake
- Memoriam A. H. H.: 72. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Олег Бундур – Февраль
- On Pedigree. From Epicharmus by William Cowper
- Winter by Shaunna Harper
- The Gift by Rabindranath Tagore
- Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen by William Butler Yeats
- An Encounter by Robert Frost
- The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney
- Николай Гумилев – Она говорила
- A Winter Night by Sara Teasdale
- UNEVEN PATH by Satish Verma
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
- Address to the Toothache by Robert Burns
- Address to the shade of Thomson by Robert Burns
- Address to the Deil by Robert Burns
- Address to Edinburgh by Robert Burns
- Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns
- Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle by Robert Burns
- Adam Armour’s Prayer by Robert Burns
- A Winter Night by Robert Burns
- A Vision by Robert Burns
- A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc. by Robert Burns
- A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
- A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish by Robert Burns
- A Prayer in the Prospect of Death by Robert Burns
- A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter by Robert Burns
- A New Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock by Robert Burns
- A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death by Robert Burns
- A Grace before Dinner by Robert Burns
- A Grace after Dinner by Robert Burns
- News, lassies, news (Song) by Robert Burns
- Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet (Song) by Robert Burns
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.