Alec Derwent Hope
Phallus
This was the gods’ god, The leashed divinity, Divine divining rod And Me within the me. By mindlight tower and tree Its shadow on the ground Throw, and in darkness she Whose weapon is
The Return of Persephone
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
Standardization
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
Crossing the Frontier
Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time, Told, quite politely, they would have to wait: Passports in order, nothing to declare And surely holding hands was not a crime Until they saw how,
Australia
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
The Pleasure of Princes
What pleasures have great princes? These: to know Themselves reputed mad with pride or power; To speak few words few words and short bring low This ancient house, that city with flame devour; To
The Gateway
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 School of Night
What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though
Meditation on a Bone
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;
Death of the Bird
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
Easter Hymn
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;
Conquistador
I sing of the decline of Henry Clay Who loved a white girl of uncommon size. Although a small man in a little way, He had in him some seed of enterprise. Each day
Morning Coffee
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
Tiger
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,
Parabola
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,