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:
- Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest by William Shakespeare
- Robert Burns: To Alex. Cunningham, ESQ., Writer: Ellisland, Nithsdale, July 27th, 1788.
- Lit Instructor by William Stafford
- 1914 V: The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Not out of the running by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- Couplet 4 poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Британишский – Океан с континентом воюют
- I have been tricked by flying too close by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- An Opera House poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Poem of Joys. by Walt Whitman
- On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes by Thomas Gray
- Latino Author and Educator Provides Tools for College and Life Success
- Reproof: A Satire. by Tobias Smollett
- The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk by Rabindranath Tagore
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
- Awed by her splendor by Sappho
- To Aphrodite by Sappho
- And their feet move by Sappho
- Anactoria by Sappho
- An Epithalamium by Sappho
- Although they are by Sappho
- In Adoration by Sappho
- A Lament For Adonis by Sappho
- A Hymn To Venus by Sappho
- Youth And The Pilgrim by Sara Teasdale
- Triolets by Sara Teasdale
- To L. R. E. by Sara Teasdale
- To A Picture Of Eleanor Duse by Sara Teasdale
- To A Castillan Song by Sara Teasdale
- Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
- The Wine by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind In The Hemlock by Sara Teasdale
- The Wayfarer by Sara Teasdale
- The Wanderer by Sara Teasdale
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.