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 124: If my dear love were but the child of state by William Shakespeare
- Shema by Primo Levi
- Шекспир – Неужто я, приняв любви венец – Сонет 114
- A Musician’s Wife by Weldon Kees
- Robert Burns: Young Peggy Blooms:
- Ольга Высотская – Первые заморозки
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- God Neither Known Nor Loved By The World by William Cowper
- Grief by Philip Larkin
- Come by Sara Teasdale
- Вера Звягинцева – Качаешься в гробу стеклянном
- To the Pay Toilet by Marge Piercy
- The Great Conch Train Robbery by Shel Silverstein
- The Garden By The Bridge
- A Reply To A Pessimist poem – Alfred Austin
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
- Hope by Swaraj Prasad
- Ematiated Souls by Suuk Simon Subinimah
- Curtis by Susan King Saunders
- Caught by Susan Adams
- A soldier’s Pledge by Sylvan Lightbourne
- A character of it’s own by Sylvan Lightbourne
- Zoo-Keeper’s Wife by Sylvia Plath
- You’re by Sylvia Plath
- Yadwigha, On A Red Couch, Among Lillies by Sylvia Plath
- Yaddo : The Grand Manor by Sylvia Plath
- Wreath For A Bridal by Sylvia Plath
- Words Heard, By Accident, Over The Phone by Sylvia Plath
- A Winter’s Tale by Sylvia Plath
- Winter Landscape, With Rooks by Sylvia Plath
- Watercolor Of Grantchester Meadows by Sylvia Plath
- Waking In Winter by Sylvia Plath
- Virgin In A Tree by Sylvia Plath
- Two Views Of Withens by Sylvia Plath
- Two Views Of A Cadaver Room by Sylvia Plath
- Two Sisters Of Persephone by Sylvia Plath
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.