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:
- Ольга Берггольц – Вот я выбирала для разлуки
- Николай Гербель – В дорогу
- Here I would have loved you by Luz del Alba Nicola
- English Poetry. George Eliot. How Lisa Loved the King. Джордж Элиот.
- Thrushes by Ted Hughes
- Why? by Tiffany Ann Monroe
- The River Has Its Memories by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Константин Бальмонт – Можно жить с закрытыми глазами
- A Witch by William Barnes
- Владимир Макуров – Бумажный самолёт
- AN HYMN TO THE MUSES by Robert Herrick
- Ольга Берггольц – Какая тёмная зима
- On Mr. Gay poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight by Rainer Maria Rilke
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
- Getting There by Sylvia Plath
- Full Fathom Five by Sylvia Plath
- Frog Autumn by Sylvia Plath
- Firesong by Sylvia Plath
- Finisterre by Sylvia Plath
- Fiesta Melons by Sylvia Plath
- Fever 103° by Sylvia Plath
- Female Author by Sylvia Plath
- Faun by Sylvia Plath
- Face Lift by Sylvia Plath
- Event by Sylvia Plath
- Elm by Sylvia Plath
- Ella Mason And Her Eleven Cats by Sylvia Plath
- Edge by Sylvia Plath
- Eavesdropper by Sylvia Plath
- Doomsday by Sylvia Plath
- Dialogue En Route by Sylvia Plath
- Dialogue Between Ghost And Priest by Sylvia Plath
- Departure by Sylvia Plath
- Denouement Villanelle 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.