The Return of Persephone: Alec Derwent Hope Gliding through the still air, he made no sound; Wing-shod and deft, dropped almost at her feet, And searched the ghostly regiments and found The living eyes, the tremor of breath, the beat Of blood in all that...
Easter Hymn: Alec Derwent Hope Make no mistake; there will be no forgiveness; No voice can harm you and no hand will save; Fenced by the magic of deliberate darkness You walk on the sharp edges of the wave; Trouble with soul again the putrefaction...
Morning Coffee: Alec Derwent Hope Reading the menu at the morning service: – Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum – Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous, Glances around – Will she or won’t she come? The congregation dissected into pews Gulping their strip teas in...
Meditation on a Bone: Alec Derwent Hope A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A.D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a...
The Gateway: Alec Derwent Hope Now the heart sings with all its thousand voices To hear this city of cells, my body, sing. The tree through the stiff clay at long last forces Its thin strong roots and taps the secret spring. And the sweet...
Standardization: Alec Derwent Hope When, darkly brooding on this Modern Age, The journalist with his marketable woes Fills up once more the inevitable page Of fatuous, flatulent, Sunday-paper prose; Whenever the green aesthete starts to whoop With horror at the house not made with hands...
Australia: 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...
The Commination: Alec Derwent Hope He that is filthy let him be filthy still. Rev. 22.11 Like John on Patmos, brooding on the Four Last Things, I meditate the ruin of friends Whose loss, Lord, brings this grand new curse to mind Now send me...
Observation Car: Alec Derwent Hope To be put on the train and kissed and given my ticket, Then the station slid backward, the shops and the neon lighting, Reeling off in a drunken blur, with a whole pound note in my pocket And the holiday...
Parabola: Alec Derwent Hope Year after year the princess lies asleep Until the hundred years foretold are done, Easily drawing her enchanted breath. Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep, Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one Rot loose and...
