A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.
A few random poems:
- Алишер Навои – Пустословя на минбаре
- An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic by Vachel Lindsay
- Identification In Belfast by Robert Lowell
- Anecdote For Fathers by William Wordsworth
- Suppressed Stanzas of “The Vision” by Robert Burns
- Story By Lalla Ji The Priest
- Evening balcony by Vladimir Marku
- Desire by Samuel Coleridge
- Шекспир – Ты положи с моей любовью рядом – Сонет 117
- Владислав Крапивин – На Диком Западе
- In Memory of a Child by Vachel Lindsay
- Robert Burns Country: In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer:
- I think it rains by Wole Soyinka
- At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сколько я, сколько я видел на свете их
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
- Psalm 08 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 07 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 06 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 05 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 04 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 03 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 02 poem – John Milton poems
- Psalm 01 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Regained: The Third Book poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Regained: The Second Book poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Regained: The First Book poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 12 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 11 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 10 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 09 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 08 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 07 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 06 poem – John Milton poems
- Paradise Lost: Book 05 poem – John Milton poems
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.