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:
- Shrodon Feäir by William Barnes
- Стефан Малларме – Звенящий зимний день
- Why Feed The Early Signs Of Boredom? poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Василий Курочкин – Двуглавый орел
- Владимир Гиляровский – Я эоловой арфы струна
- Hendecasyllabics poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Sonnet CL by William Shakespeare
- Альфред де Мюссе – Все мною предано забвенью
- The Child’s Greäve by William Barnes
- Why?
- Going for Water by Robert Frost
- Robert Burns: On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland: Collecting The Antiquities Of That Kingdom
- Paris In Spring by Sara Teasdale
- The Living Beauty by William Butler Yeats
- The house where I was born (04) by Yves Bonnefoy
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
- Жан де Лафонтен – Садовод и Помещик
- Жан де Лафонтен – Пьяница и Жена его
- Жан де Лафонтен – Предостережение богов Симониду
- Жан де Лафонтен – Павлин, жалующийся Юноне
- Жан де Лафонтен – Осел со священной ношей
- Жан де Лафонтен – Осел и Собака
- Жан де Лафонтен – Орел и Сова
- Жан де Лафонтен – Орел, Дикая Свинья и Кошка
- Жан де Лафонтен – Обезьяна и Дельфин
- Жан де Лафонтен – Мужчина средних лет и его две Возлюбленные
- Жан де Лафонтен – Мельник, Сын его и Осел
- Жан де Лафонтен – Львиный указ
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лисица, Мухи и Еж
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лисица и Аист
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лев, сраженный Человеком
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лес и Дровосек
- Жан де Лафонтен – Ласочка в амбаре
- Жан де Лафонтен – Кошка, превращенная в женщину
- Жан де Лафонтен – Карман
- Жан де Лафонтен – Городская и полевая Крысы
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.