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:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Холодно, метёт кругом
- The Street Sounds to the Soldiers’ Tread poem – A. E. Housman
- Василий Жуковский – Могущество, слава и благоденствие России
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- Robert Burns: Jockey’s Taen The Parting Kiss:
- New York at Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Written In A Quarrel by William Cowper
- Aplogize
- The First Part: Sonnet 4 – Fair is my yoke, though grievous be my pains, by William Drummond
- the_christening.html
- Counting My Past
- Bill ‘Awkins by Rudyard Kipling
- Валерий Брюсов – Где-то
- Владимир Вишневский – На исходе двадцатого века
- Владимир Маяковский – Чехарда в палате… (РОСТА №881)
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
- A Fable by William Cowper
- A Comparison by William Cowper
- A Comparison. Addressed To A Young Lady by William Cowper
- A Child Of God Longing To See Him Beloved by William Cowper
- William Ellery Leonard – William Ellery Leonard
- Wayside Flowers by William Allingham
- These Little Songs by William Allingham
- The Touchstone by William Allingham
- The Little Dell by William Allingham
- The Fairies by William Allingham
- The Eviction by William Allingham
- The Boy by William Allingham
- Robin Redbreast by William Allingham
- Places and Men by William Allingham
- On a Forenoon of Spring by William Allingham
- Meadowsweet by William Allingham
- Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker, The by William Allingham
- Late Autumn by William Allingham
- William Allingham – William Allingham
- In Snow by William Allingham
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.