A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
At noon thepaper tigers roar
— Miroslav Holub
The paper tigers roar at noon;
The sun is hot, the sun is high.
They roar in chorus, not in tune,
Their plaintive, savage hunting cry.
O, when you hear them, stop your ears
And clench your lids and bite your tongue.
The harmless paper tiger bears
Strong fascination for the young.
His forest is the busy street;
His dens the forum and the mart;
He drinks no blood, he tastes no meat:
He riddles and corrupts the heart.
But when the dusk begins to creep
From tree to tree, from door to door,
The jungle tiger wakes from sleep
And utters his authentic roar.
It bursts the night and shakes the stars
Till one breaks blazing from the sky;
Then listen! If to meet it soars
Your heart’s reverberating cry,
My child, then put aside your fear:
Unbar the door and walk outside!
The real tiger waits you there;
His golden eyes shall be your guide.
And, should he spare you in his wrath,
The world and all the worlds are yours;
And should he leap thejungle path
And clasp you with his bloody jaws,
Then say, as his divine embrace
Destroys the mortal parts of you:
I too am of that royal race
Who do what we are born to do.
A few random poems:
- Love thy Country and Do a useful Act – Gurazada by Vijay Narayana Chilaka
- Song—Address to the Woodlark by Robert Burns
- Internal Migration Being Tour
- John Barleycorn: A Ballad by Robert Burns
- Rimmon by Rudyard Kipling
- The State
- Sonnet V by Mahmoud Darwish
- Юлия Друнина – Геологиня
- To a Commencement of Scoundrels by Samuel Hazo
- Civil War East Coast United States North America 1860 64
- Robert Burns: O Aye My Wife She Dang Me:
- Missing Person by Vinita Agrawal
- Absence by Walter Savage Landor
- What Then? by William Butler Yeats
- The Old Maids Story
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
- Lovesong by Ted Hughes
- Lineage by Ted Hughes
- How To Paint A Water Lily by Ted Hughes
- Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes
- God’s Grandeur by Ted Hughes
- Full Moon and Little Frieda by Ted Hughes
- Examination at the Womb-Door by Ted Hughes
- Earth-Moon by Ted Hughes
- Crow’s Nerve Fails by Ted Hughes
- Crow’s Fall by Ted Hughes
- Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days by Ted Hughes
- A Woman Unconscious by Ted Hughes
- Weak by Tanisha Avarsekar
- The battle of fire by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Taketh away by Tanisha Avarsekar
- So tired by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Silent consolation by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Life a chess game by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Life a battlefield by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Late realizations by Tanisha Avarsekar
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.