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:
- AWAY FROM HOME by Satish Verma
- Robert Burns: O Thou Dread Power: Lying at a reverend friend’s house one night, the author left the following verses in the room where he slept:-
- King Arthur’s Men Have Come Again by Vachel Lindsay
- Владимир Маяковский – Давайте и получите (РОСТА №495)
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
- Blanche Sweet by Vachel Lindsay
- Ballade of Dead Actors by William Ernest Henley
- Millions of Us poem – Alice Notley
- Youth And The Pilgrim by Sara Teasdale
- Яков Полонский – Ночь в Крыму
- Николай Карамзин – Господину Дмитриеву на болезнь его (Болезнь есть часть живущих в мире)
- Sonnet X
- Омар Хайям – Благородство страданием, друг, рождено
- The Three Beggars by William Butler Yeats
- Lost Delight
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
- Summer poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats’s poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stupidity poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stravinsky’s Three Pieces poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Storm-Racked poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Spring Day poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sea Shell poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Red Slippers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Reaping poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Petals poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patterns poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patience poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Patience poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- On Carpaccio’s Picture: The Dream of St. Ursula poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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.