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:
- Earliest Spring by William Dean Howells
- Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- The Old Gumbie Cat by T. S. Eliot
- About Face poem – Alice Fulton
- A Captive Throstle poem – Alfred Austin
- Between the Dusk of a Summer Night by William Ernest Henley
- A Plain Life by William Henry Davies
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- Limbo by Seamus Heaney
- Владимир Британишский – Багульник, ельник, изволоки, взгорья
- Not quite dark yet by Yosa Buson
- Psalm 02 poem – John Milton poems
- Robert Burns: Sweet Tibbie Dunbar:
- Николай Тихонов – Баллада о гвоздях
- The Rising and Falling of Trees by Patricia Fargnoli
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
- PLEADING by Satish Verma
- PERCEPTION by Satish Verma
- Pandering by Satish Verma
- OPTIONS by Satish Verma
- Olive Branch by Satish Verma
- OFF-LIMITS by Satish Verma
- Oblivion by Satish Verma
- O You by Satish Verma
- NIGHT RAID by Satish Verma
- Night Light by Satish Verma
- Muttering by Satish Verma
- MOURNING by Satish Verma
- Moony Affair by Satish Verma
- Monument by Satish Verma
- Metaphysical View by Satish Verma
- MANY NAMESAKES by Satish Verma
- Lying on a Slab by Satish Verma
- Lunar Eclipse by Satish Verma
- Live Baits by Satish Verma
- Listening To Rwanda Genocide by Satish Verma
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.