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:
- A Carol by Rudyard Kipling
- A New Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock by Robert Burns
- The Virgin Maid of Orleans, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: La Pucelle by T. Wignesan.
- Song. A Beautiful Mistress. by Thomas Carew
- Владимир Маяковский – Первомайское поздравление
- Shattered Dreams. Broken Promises. by Russell James
- A Gemini’s Hurt by Stephen Allen
- A Lover poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: Ah, Woe Is Me, My Mother Dear: Paraphrase of Jeremiah, 15th Chap., 10th verse
- The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Mob
- After Hearing a Waltz poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Федор Сологуб – Выйди в поле полночное
- A Coat by William Butler Yeats
- In The Early Pearly Morning
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
- Leaving and Leaving You by Sophie Hannah
- If It Were Beginning by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Hypatia by Stanley Wilkin
- Homosexuality by Spencer Reece
- Highway to Happiness by Stacey Chillemi
- High school crush……lonesome awaits by Stephen Allen
- God’s Abdication by Snowdon King
- Family by Stacey Chillemi
- Everything He Did, He Did In Jest by stanley wilkin
- Entropy by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Disconnect by Snowdon King
- Crazy Insane by Stephen Sweitzer
- By the Dusk – Ao Entardecer by Soaroir de Campos
- By Garpal Stream by Stanley Wilkin
- Buddha’s Laugh by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Beautiful Moroccan by Stanley Wilkin
- Ambrosia by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Alternate Destination by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- Adaptation by Sriparna Bandyopadhyay
- A Veterans Memories Breeze By In the Wind by Stacey Chillemi
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.