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:
- Олег Чупров – Вечером поздним потянет к Печоре
- The Country House poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Aziz Song Of Mahomed Akram
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- Ольга Берггольц – Второй разговор с соседкой
- Protest By Zahir U Din
- Вергилий – Лидия
- Николай Заболоцкий – Кулак, владыка батраков
- Ballad of the Goodly Fere poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Protest poem by Susan King Saunders
- The Pact by Sharon Olds
- Яков Полонский – Чтобы песня моя разлилась как поток
- Эмиль Верхарн – Заблуждение
- The Poet as Hero by Siegfried Sassoon
- Beauty by Tony Hoagland
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 Song Of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats
- The Song Of The Old Mother by William Butler Yeats
- The Shadowy Waters: The Harp of Aengus by William Butler Yeats
- The Seven Sages by William Butler Yeats
- The Secret Rose by William Butler Yeats
- The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
- The Scholars by William Butler Yeats
- The Saint And The Hunchback by William Butler Yeats
- The Sad Shepherd by William Butler Yeats
- The Rose Tree by William Butler Yeats
- The Rose Of The World by William Butler Yeats
- The Rose Of Peace by William Butler Yeats
- The Rose Of Battle by William Butler Yeats
- The Results Of Thought by William Butler Yeats
- The Realists by William Butler Yeats
- The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers by William Butler Yeats
- The Pity Of Love by William Butler Yeats
- The Pilgrim by William Butler Yeats
- The Phases Of The Moon by William Butler Yeats
- The People 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.