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:
- To Delia by William Cowper
- On One Ignorant And Arrogant (Translated From Owen) by William Cowper
- To the Right Hon. The Earl of Halifax , with the Fable of the Two Springs by William Somervile
- Валерий Брюсов – Гнутся высокие лотосы
- Олег Бундур – Глухарь
- To a Very Wise Man by Siegfried Sassoon
- Quality Customer Service – How to Measure Customer Satisfaction
- Гавриил Державин – Жуковскому и Родзянке, приславшим с большими похвалами автору перевод его оды «Бог» на французском языке
- Think No More, Lad poem – A. E. Housman
- Let It Be Forgotten by Sara Teasdale
- Epitaph on a Noisy Polemic by Robert Burns
- The Magician by Syed Kawsar Jamal
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- Rainbow Hues by Suchi Gaur
- To the Pay Toilet by Marge Piercy
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
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Бедняк
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Бахчисарай
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ель и берёза
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Е. А. Карлгоф
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Две прелестницы
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Два клада
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Довольно
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Дом в цветах
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Добрый совет
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Дева за клавесином
- Владимир Бенедиктов – День и две ночи
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Dahin
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чёрный цвет
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чувство
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Что ж делать
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Что шумишь
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чесменские трофеи
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Человек
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Кудри
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Коса
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.