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:
- “Wonkavite…” by Roald Dahl
- In These Present Times How Worried Should We Be?
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso
- Николай Тихонов – Крутили мельниц диких жернова
- Fool’s Money Bags poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer’s Tale Of The Flowre And The Lefe poem – John Keats poems
- All Night In Savannah The Wind Wrote Poetry
- Mammary Tunes by Mark R Slaughter
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Анатолий Жигулин – О, Родина, в неярком блеске
- Andrew Jones by William Wordsworth
- Николай Некрасов – Детство
- Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women by Anne Sexton
- Константин Батюшков – Мадригал Мелине, которая называла себя нимфою
- A Lyric to Mirth by Robert Herrick
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
- At The Abbey Theatre by William Butler Yeats
- At Galway Races by William Butler Yeats
- At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats
- Are You Content? by William Butler Yeats
- Another Song Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats
- An Irish Airman Forsees His Death by William Butler Yeats
- An Image From A Past Life by William Butler Yeats
- An Appointment by William Butler Yeats
- An Acre Of Grass by William Butler Yeats
- All Things Can Tempt Me by William Butler Yeats
- Against Unworthy Praise by William Butler Yeats
- After Long Silence by William Butler Yeats
- Adam’s Curse by William Butler Yeats
- A Woman Homer Sung by William Butler Yeats
- A Thought From Propertius by William Butler Yeats
- A Stick Of Incense by William Butler Yeats
- A Statesman’s Holiday by William Butler Yeats
- A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats
- A Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Prayer On Going Into My House by William Butler Yeats
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.