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:
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Лифшиц – Вступление
- The Baptistry
- Robert Burns: Twas Na Her Bonie Blue E’e:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Утренняя гимнастика
- Your Dog Dies by Raymond Carver
- To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday poem – Alexander Pope
- Ho, everyone that thirsteth poem – A. E. Housman
- Sappho Redivivus: A Fragment by Robert Burns
- The Song Of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats
- Николай Некрасов – Дни идут… всё так же воздух душен
- Николай Гумилев – Неизгладимы, нет, в моей судьбе
- Reconciliation by Siegfried Sassoon
- Taylor Swift
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
- A Winter Ship by Sylvia Plath
- A Secret by Sylvia Plath
- Years by Sylvia Plath
- Wuthering Heights by Sylvia Plath
- Words by Sylvia Plath
- Witch Burning by Sylvia Plath
- Wintering by Sylvia Plath
- Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
- Widow by Sylvia Plath
- Who by Sylvia Plath
- Whitsun by Sylvia Plath
- Whiteness I Remember by Sylvia Plath
- Verbal Calisthenics by Sylvia Plath
- Vanity Fair by Sylvia Plath
- Tulips by Sylvia Plath
- Touch-And-Go by Sylvia Plath
- Totem by Sylvia Plath
- Three Women by Sylvia Plath
- Thalidomide by Sylvia Plath
- Terminal 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.