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:
- Memoriam
- Eclogue:–The Best Man In The Vield by William Barnes
- Жан де Лафонтен – Фортуна и Дитя
- Федор Тютчев – Каким венком нам увенчать
- Sitting atop the mountain hill by Swami Aaron Thomas
- Олег Григорьев – Совершенно откровенно
- New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
- The Identification by Roger McGough
- Sleep
- Владимир Высоцкий – Звезды
- An Address to the New Tay Bridge by William Topaz McGonagall
- Как прекрасны все цветы
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- A Poet by Thomas Hardy
- John Bleäke At Hwome At Night by William Barnes
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
- Ок Мельникова – Тоской тома йорка
- Ок Мельникова – Сохрани
- Ок Мельникова – Sha man
- Ок Мельникова – Птицей
- Ок Мельникова – Профессия рок-звезда
- Ок Мельникова – Подростковые драмы
- Ок Мельникова – Плацкарт-блюз
- Ок Мельникова – От киева до сантьяго
- Ок Мельникова – Обет молчания
- Ок Мельникова – Не в этот раз
- Ок Мельникова – Не горим, не светим
- Ок Мельникова – Моя муза любитель блюза
- Ок Мельникова – Let it be
- Ок Мельникова – Карниз
- Ок Мельникова – Hey jude
- Ок Мельникова – Где-то на приморском
- Ок Мельникова – Гасите звёзды
- Ок Мельникова – Если есть от кого ждать писем
- Ок Мельникова – Что рассказать?
- Ок Мельникова – Блюз-16
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.