A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.
Year after year a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.
And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest,
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart’s possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.
The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Blows a cool air from moorland scarps of stone.
And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger;
That delicate voice, more urgent with despair,
Custom and fear constraining her no longer,
Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air.
A vanishing speck in those inane dominions,
Single and frail, uncertain of her place,
Alone in the bright host of her companions,
Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space.
She feels it close now, the appointed season;
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies.
Try as she will, the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign;
Immense,complex contours of hills and rivers
Mock her small wisdom with their vast design.
The darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.
A few random poems:
- Demon And Beast by William Butler Yeats
- Ancient pornography before pornography. 10 Most Shocking Sex Artifacts From The Ancient World. Amazing works of erotic art of the ancient world.
- At Dawn poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Juvenilia An Ode To Natural Beauty
- The Grey Rock by William Butler Yeats
- À ce point du voyage by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Mother by Sachin Yadav (Pen Name: Rahul Nachhiketa)
- Владимир Британишский – Молния ударяет
- The Princess: A Medley: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Виталий Бакалдин – Я не рос среди берез
- Orlando Furioso Canto 17 by Ludovico Ariosto
- A Twilight Song poem – Alfred Austin
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: A Dream: Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason; But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason. On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate’s Ode, with the other parade of June 4th, 1786, the Author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the Birth-day Levee: and, in his dreaming fancy, made the following Address:
- Robert Burns: The Calf: To the Rev. James Steven, on his text, Malachi, ch. iv. vers. 2. “And ye shall go forth, and grow up, as Calves of the stall.”
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
- Ольга Седакова – Сновидец
- Ольга Седакова – Сказочка
- Ольга Седакова – Сказка
- Ольга Седакова – Selva selvaggia
- Ольга Седакова – С нежностью и глубиной
- Ольга Седакова – Путешествие волхвов
- Ольга Седакова – Прощание
- Ольга Седакова – Прибавления к “Старым песням”
- Ольга Седакова – Преданья о подвижниках похожи
- Ольга Седакова – Последний читатель
- Ольга Седакова – Плач
- Ольга Седакова – Первая тетрадь
- Ольга Седакова – Памяти поэта
- Ольга Седакова – Памяти одной старухи
- Ольга Седакова – Ни темной старины заветные преданья
- Ольга Седакова – Неужели, Мария, только рамы скрипят
- Ольга Седакова – Несчастен
- Ольга Седакова – Музыка
- Ольга Седакова – Московские картинки
- Ольга Седакова – Маленькое посвящение Владимиру Ивановичу Хвостину
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.