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:
- Олег Сердобольский – Птенчик
- English Poetry. Richard Hovey. The Old Pine. Ричард Хави.
- Владимир Высоцкий – Заживайте, раны мои
- Address to the Deil by Robert Burns
- View From The Top Of Black Comb by William Wordsworth
- Irony poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali
- Epigram—Kirk and State Excisemen by Robert Burns
- gum tree loved by the sky by Raj Arumugam
- What is Poetry? by Mark Olynyk
- A Lover To His Mistress by William Strode
- In A Wood by Thomas Hardy
- The Flight by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet Xv
- Wake Not for the World-Heard Thunder poem – A. E. Housman
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 Маяковский – Рабочие столицы, крестьяне окраины… (Роста №89)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочей России Красной рыцарь…
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабкор (Лбом пробив безграмотья горы)
- Владимир Маяковский – Пятый интернационал
- Владимир Маяковский – Пустяк у Оки
- Владимир Маяковский – Птичка божия
- Владимир Маяковский – Проверь, товарищ, правильность факта
- Владимир Маяковский – Протекция
- Владимир Маяковский – Прощанье
- Владимир Маяковский – Промедление – смерть (Главполитпросвет №339)
- Владимир Маяковский – Пролетарка, пролетарий, заходите в планетарий
- Владимир Маяковский – Профсоюзы – производства рычаг… (Главполитпросвет №10)
- Владимир Маяковский – Профплакаты
- Владимир Маяковский – Продналог оставил деревне много лишка… (Главполитпросвет №157)
- Владимир Маяковский – Проч руки от Китая
- Владимир Маяковский – Про Тита и Ваньку
- Владимир Маяковский – Про пешеходов и разинь, вонзивших глазки небу в синь
- Владимир Маяковский – Про гидру контрреволюции сегодня сказ (РОСТА № 79)
- Владимир Маяковский – Про это
- Владимир Маяковский – Привет, КИМ
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.