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:
- Владимир Вишневский – Пассажирский поезд
- Out A-Nuttèn by William Barnes
- Sadness and Joy by William Henry Davies
- Morning Poem #59 by Wanda Phipps
- ode to love by Rohit Sridharan
- To the Rat’s Pencil
- Михаил Лермонтов – Валерик
- UNDECIPHERABLE by Satish Verma
- And Then It Rained by Pamela Griffiths
- Lets go by Vinko Kalinić
- Алексей Плещеев – Лучше гибель без возврата
- Camps of Green. by Walt Whitman
- Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool by Ruth Padel
- The Rainy Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- To His Love When He Had Obtained Her by Sir Walter Raleigh
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
- On A Picture Of A Black Centaur By Edmund Dulac by William Butler Yeats
- Old Tom Again by William Butler Yeats
- Old Memory by William Butler Yeats
- Oil And Blood by William Butler Yeats
- O Do Not Love Too Long by William Butler Yeats
- Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen by William Butler Yeats
- News For The Delphic Oracle by William Butler Yeats
- Never Give All The Heart by William Butler Yeats
- Mohini Chatterjee by William Butler Yeats
- Model For The Laureate by William Butler Yeats
- Michael Robartes And The Dancer by William Butler Yeats
- Men Improve With The Years by William Butler Yeats
- Memory by William Butler Yeats
- Meeting by William Butler Yeats
- Meditations In Time Of Civil War by William Butler Yeats
- Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- Blood And The Moon by William Butler Yeats
- Before The World Was Made by William Butler Yeats
- Beautiful Lofty Things by William Butler Yeats
- Baile And Aillinn by William Butler Yeats
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.