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:
- Hands by Russell Edson
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Коса
- To The Queen poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Да здравствуют недели помощи по всей республике (Главполитпросвет №353)
- one_almost_might.html
- To a Lady on Her Remarkable Preservation by Phillis Wheatley
- I Have A Rendezvous With Death
- Robert Burns: Address To Wm. Tytler, Esq., Of Woodhouselee: With an Impression of the Author’s Portrait.
- Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Вакханки (перевод)
- The Dead Woman poem – Pablo Neruda
- In The Bazaars of Hyderabad by Sarojini Naidu
- Nanna by Ross D Tyler
- Константин Бальмонт – Мудрецы говорят
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope
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
- the-flash-reverses-time.html
- que-sera-sera.html
- power-of-thought.html
- phantasm.html
- once_was_a_singer_for_god_remembering_nekia.html
- old-boy.html
- lost_love_is_never_lost.html
- long_i_waited_in_vain.html
- holiday_letter_for_a_poet_gone_to_war.html
- gratitudes_of_a_dozen_roses.html
- every_hour_henceforth.html
- einstein-defining-special-relativity.html
- cell-mate.html
- calling-the-spirits.html
- angel_of_christmas_love_shining_bright.html
- angel_of_better_days_to_come.html
- All Night in Savannah the Wind Wrote Poetry by Aberjhani
- a-tempest-in-a-teacup.html
- Eveleen’s Bower by Thomas Moore
- Erin! The Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes by Thomas Moore
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.