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.

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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
- I am the earthworm, Lord of the Underworld by Raj Arumugam
- I am content here by Raj Arumugam
- How I saved Planet Earth by Raj Arumugam
- how far are you? by Raj Arumugam
- how did poetry begin? by Raj Arumugam
- Hey birds by Raj Arumugam
- Head of a Smiling Young Woman in Three-Quarter View by Raj Arumugam
- gum tree loved by the sky by Raj Arumugam
- good bye, my sweet angel by Raj Arumugam
- four legs good, two legs badOwl Hoots and Grasshopper Sings by Raj Arumugam
- four legs good, two legs bad by Raj Arumugam
- five moons for earth by Raj Arumugam
- Female ghost in the moonlight by Raj Arumugam
- emotional bond by Raj Arumugam
- doughnuts for sale by Raj Arumugam
- different lovers by Raj Arumugam
- did you die, Ophelia? by Raj Arumugam
- dear owl, forlorn like King Lear by Raj Arumugam
- dear moon, you will understand by Raj Arumugam
- days of quiet 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.