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:
- Eloisa to Abelard poem – Alexander Pope
- About Face poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster
- Doubts by Rupert Brooke
- Social Amenities poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Стефан Малларме – Появление
- Distant View Of England From The Sea by William Lisle Bowles
- Юлия Друнина – Другу
- Sporting Acquaintances by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я всё чаще думаю о судьях
- Валерий Брюсов – Песня североамериканских индейцев
- Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be, as I am now by William Shakespeare
- A Song of Peach-Blossom River by Wang Wei
- Angels By The Door by William Barnes
- Thou Reader. by Walt Whitman
- Nothing is Real by Rixa White
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
- Валерий Брюсов – Испанская песенка
- Валерий Брюсов – Искушение
- Валерий Брюсов – Искатель
- Валерий Брюсов – Инкогнито
- Валерий Брюсов – In hас lackimarum valle (в этой долине слез )
- Валерий Брюсов – Il bacio
- Валерий Брюсов – Игорю Северянину (Строя струны лиры клирной)
- Валерий Брюсов – Идут года. Но с прежней страстью
- Валерий Брюсов – Идеал
- Валерий Брюсов – И вдруг все станет так понятно
- Валерий Брюсов – И. Туманьяну надпись на книге (Да будет праведно возмездие)
- Валерий Брюсов – И снова давние картины
- Валерий Брюсов – И снова дрожат они, грезы бессильные
- Валерий Брюсов – И он взглянул, и ты уснула, и он ушел, и умер день
- Валерий Брюсов – И небо и серое море
- Валерий Брюсов – Грядущие гунны
- Валерий Брюсов – Грустный вечер
- Валерий Брюсов – Гребцы триремы
- Валерий Брюсов – Городу дифирамб
- Валерий Брюсов – Город женщин
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.