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 Beautiful Heartbreak by Talha Jafri
- Владимир Маяковский – В начале настоящего года у нас было 3833 здоровых паровоза… (РОСТА №776)
- Paradise Lost: Book 01 poem – John Milton poems
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 06 – part 02 by Torquato Tasso
- Sonnet 58: That god forbid, that made me first your slave by William Shakespeare
- Огюст Барбье – Джин
- Михаил Кузмин – Вот после ржавых львов и рева
- you are there moon by Raj Arumugam
- English Poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Assault. Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей.
- Stanzas. In A Drear-Nighted December poem – John Keats poems
- Низами Гянджеви – От сердца всю ночь мечтал
- Friendship poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Владимир Лифшиц – Грустная шутка
- Battle Salamis
- The Survivor by Primo Levi
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
- Note to Reality by Tony Hoagland
- National Trust by Tony Harrison
- Memory As a Hearing Aid by Tony Hoagland
- Marked with D. by Tony Harrison
- Lucky by Tony Hoagland
- Long Distance II by Tony Harrison
- Long Distance I by Tony Harrison
- Jet by Tony Hoagland
- Tony Harrison – Tony Harrison
- In Praise of Their Divorce by Tony Hoagland
- I Have News For You by Tony Hoagland
- Heredity by Tony Harrison
- Grammar by Tony Hoagland
- Don’t Tell Anyone by Tony Hoagland
- Disappointment by Tony Hoagland
- Coming and Going by Tony Hoagland
- Book Ends by Tony Harrison
- Big Grab by Tony Hoagland
- Bible Study by Tony Hoagland
- Beauty by Tony Hoagland
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.