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:
- Prison Song
- The Faithless Shadows. poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- 1914 V: The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
- On A Miser (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Before the Altar poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Анатолий Жигулин – О, Родина, в неярком блеске
- The Ever-Patient Woman poem – Andree Chedid poems | Poems and Poetry
- Георгий Иванов – Теперь, когда быстрее лавы
- Bag-Snatching In Dublin by Stevie Smith
- Debt by Sara Teasdale
- Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding by William Morris
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Маша
- Love Sonnet LIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems | Poetry Monster
- Вера Звягинцева – Качаешься в гробу стеклянном
- Life Passing by Pawan Kumar
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
- Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea by Sylvia Plath
- Two Campers In Cloud Country by Sylvia Plath
- Trio Of Love Songs by Sylvia Plath
- To Eva Descending The Stair by Sylvia Plath
- To A Jilted Lover by Sylvia Plath
- Tinker Jack And The Tidy Wives by Sylvia Plath
- The Trial Of A Man by Sylvia Plath
- The Tour by Sylvia Plath
- The Times Are Tidy by Sylvia Plath
- The Thin People by Sylvia Plath
- The Swarm by Sylvia Plath
- The Surgeon At 2 A.M. by Sylvia Plath
- The Stones by Sylvia Plath
- The Snowman on the Moor by Sylvia Plath
- The Sleepers by Sylvia Plath
- The Shrike by Sylvia Plath
- The Rival by Sylvia Plath
- The Ravaged Face by Sylvia Plath
- The Rabbit Catcher by Sylvia Plath
- The Queen’s Complaint 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.