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:
- Forbidden Fruit by Michael Lally
- Ribbons & Pearls by Timothy Cole
- Sacred Epiphany poem – Ammar Nadeem poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Не увлекайтесь нами
- Олег Бундур – Про затрещины
- The Country House poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Alone by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Маяковский – Дешевая распродажа
- Under The Round Tower by William Butler Yeats
- What Reward? by Winifred Mary Letts
- Epitaph on Holy Willie by Robert Burns
- Юрий Галансков – Вступление к поэме “Апельсиновая шкура”
- 19-19 by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- My rat
- cocoon_for_a_skeleton.html
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
- Grass is a taut crew; poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- Goddess poem – Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi poems | Poems and Poetry
- Freedom poem – Aminu Ola Rasaq poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dyer Died In Silence poem – Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson poems | Poems and Poetry
- Compassion poem – Amey Deshpande poems | Poems and Poetry
- Beachy Blues poem – Andrew Neil Maternick poems | Poems and Poetry
- Among hills Apache red poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- A song of living poem – Amelia Burr poems | Poems and Poetry
- A dream is a butterfly poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ode to Wine
- On The Wedding Of The Aeronaut poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- To E.S. Salomon poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Valley Of Dry Bones poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Passing Show poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The New Decalogue poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Mad Philosopher poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Legatee poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Key Note poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Hesitating Veteran poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Death Of Grant poem – Ambrose Bierce 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.