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:
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A. E. Housman
- Address to Wm. Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Ode On The Departed Regency Bill:
- On; On; Poet poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Drink To Her by Thomas Moore
- Наум Коржавин – От дурачеств, от ума ли
- Composed on The Eve Of The Marriage Of A Friend In The Vale Of Grasmere by William Wordsworth
- Dear Harp of my Country by Thomas Moore
- Николай Карамзин – Странные люди
- A CANTICLE TO APOLLO by Robert Herrick
- Loneliness is a prison by Vladimir Marku
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня из радиоспектакля “Зелёный фургон”
- I Cast My Net Into The Sea by Rabindranath Tagore
- Низами Гянджеви – Месяц неполный прошел
- Ольга Берггольц – Не сына, не младшего брата
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
- Suicide Off Egg Rock by Sylvia Plath
- Stars Over The Dordogne by Sylvia Plath
- A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet: To Time by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet To Satan by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet : To Eva by Sylvia Plath
- Song For A Summer’s Day by Sylvia Plath
- Song For A Revolutionary Love by Sylvia Plath
- Soliloquy Of The Solipsist by Sylvia Plath
- Sleep In The Mojave Desert by Sylvia Plath
- Sheep In Fog by Sylvia Plath
- Prologue To Spring by Sylvia Plath
- Poppies In October by Sylvia Plath
- Poppies In July by Sylvia Plath
- Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath
- On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath
- On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad by Sylvia Plath
- On The Decline Of Oracles by Sylvia Plath
- On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover by Sylvia Plath
- On Deck 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.