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:
- Новелла Матвеева – Смех Фавна
- Юнна Мориц – Лето
- After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics by W. H. Auden
- The Reef poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- A Death Song by William Morris
- Ольга Берггольц – Ни до серебряной и ни до золотой
- The Twa Sisters poem – Andrew Lang poems
- March on, Yes! by Miles
- The Inn Of Earth by Sara Teasdale
- betrayal.html
- An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr. John by Thomas Carew
- Hymn to Pan poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- VOICES by Satish Verma
- Solitude: An Ode poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Илья Эренбург – Я слышу всё, и горестные шепоты
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
- women picking edible plants by Raj Arumugan
- what I want to know by Raj Arumugam
- what a poet must do by Raj Arumugam
- was it you, mooon? by Raj Arumugam
- walking with a staff by Raj Arumugam
- The village girl models for the artist, 1904 by Raj Arumugam
- The Discovery of the Kama Sutra by Raj Arumugam
- Taking yourself too seriously by Raj Arumugam
- Sohni and her love Mahinwal by Raj Arumugam
- sadness from the night by Raj Arumugam
- run home, run home butterfly by Raj Arumugam
- Rip van Winkle’s dream by Raj Arumugam
- Revenge of the Ghost of the Betrayed Husband by Raj Arumugam
- Poet Herodia of ancient Pincaeia by Raj Arumugam
- pissed-off cow by Raj Arumugam
- on the edge of the seat by Raj Arumugam
- on our conditioning by Raj Arumugam
- Old Man Poet by Raj Arumugam
- oh no – not another love poem! by Raj Arumugam
- of spiritual matters by Raj Arumugam
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.